Mount Trout – Petrol Bush [LP]

"After letting their debut album (2019s Shelter Belt on Rough Skies) stew in our ear depths for some years, the beautiful Mount Trout are back with another platter served hot straight out of Mumma's basement kitchen.

The Melbourne/Narrm-via-Hobart unit hasn't turned the amps down. The tea's still spiked and you can still feel the dusty earth between your fingertips. They've just honed in on their special trade a little more and sprinkled in one or two new ingredients.

Petrol Bush is a beguiling demonstration of existential songcraft and poetic folk/rock experimentation. For most tracks, Ainslie and Faigan help transport Brown's deep verses from simple beauty into confounding wonder - with unwieldy yet serene guitar and trance-state devotional drumkit. On others the session offers wider space for sonic wandering off and searching - stumbling to a place where firecrackers pop & stink, stars sparkle, near divinity. The recordings are warm, cooked on an open fire.

Trout have us recalling the intimacy and thoughtful tangled beauty of Dag's Benefits of Solitude, Cat Power's moon pix or Dirty Three live in a rainstorm. But at the end of the day, moonlight shining down on the swamp, they read to us from their own unique story book."

Albert's Basement, 2023