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The Unofficials debut with the stormy and surreal ‘Some Things Never Change’ EP

Brisbane experimental nine-piece (!) outfit The Unofficials don’t define themselves by the static boundaries of genre. Their sound is, as they describe it, ‘liquid mercury’, flowing between and over the top of a whole host of different musical styles. Blues, jazz, progressive and psychedelia all meshed together with a little bit of pop thrown in for good measure, an infinite number of combinations of these genres seemingly possible when you have not just a band, but a troupe of capable musicians.

This week The Unofficials went and made it official and released their debut EP online for the hefty price of on the house. Titled Some Things Never Change, it is a sweet and surreal four-tracker. The amazing Some Things Never Change Pt 1 kicks off with distant rain and the sounds of a trumpet duelling with an electric guitar. It’s a 12 minute opus of a track. Haunting male and female vocals take over around the three minute mark, the song rising to a deafening crescendo of guitar and brass and shrieking vocals around eight minutes in before easing us out over the dying strains. The progression in this song is so beautiful it hurts.

Wow.

Sweet Little Thang changes it up by dragging the blues in through all manner of grit and gravel. Clocking in at nine and a half minutes, it’s a more conventional song as far as progression goes but it is still a cracker nonetheless. The solo that opens it up is a positive face-melter, with the ghostly, wailing vocals of Davey Romain kick in around two minutes in. Reminiscent of The Doors with the organs participating fully and with some lashings of real early Black Sabbath, the track makes full use of a saxophone that slithers over the track. The pace picks up midway through before the song breaks down into a kind of call-and-response jam between the guitars and the brass. The guitar riffs that play the song out are absolutely caked in sludge and filtered through a coating of grime, the vocals set to throat-shredding. Here it is live:

Used To Be (apparently AKA The Bong Song) is at a positively mainstream radio length of 6:41 compared to their efforts so far. It’s a sunny, jangly and soulful track full of good vibrations and with some fantastic vocal harmonies between Romain and his female vocal counterparts in Emily McCormick and Erica Sunnex. The bass of Oliver Gray is cranked up probably as far as it can go and adds some extra punch in the latter half of the track. The sound of a bong being ripped at the very end was so unexpected I was in stitches.

And the EP closes with the outrageous near-12 minute counterpart to the first track, Some Things Never Change Pt. 2. An utter thunderstorm of a song, picking up right where the first part left off. The guitars leading the song in bring me back to Blood Mountain-era Mastodon, a group who produced some of the finest progressive rock of the modern era on that album. The two tracks bookend the EP but I went and listened to them back to back when I was done and the experience was mind-bending. There’s wicked fast double kick drums from James Brown (not of the Soul Man variety), there’s duelling saxophone with guitars, the sax of Alex Price eventually winning out and soloing up a storm, there are haunting vocal harmonies and just so many subtle sounds you miss on first go around. The pouring rain that opened the EP then closes it, and I need myself a cigarette.

Every instrument and every sound on this record just intertwines and co-mingles perfectly. My first listen to this EP is my introduction to this band but it’s just crystal clear that they’re all disgustingly talented as musicians. Sonically beautiful and bending genres in so many creative ways, for an EP this is so deep and immersive that you’ll find yourself going back for more as soon as you can.

A fine debut from The Unofficials.

Some Things Never Change is available for streaming and purchase (name your price) on the band’s official Bandcamp.