TROPICAL FUCK STORM – FAIRYLAND CODEX: REVIEW
- Bernard Zuel
- Jul 2
- 3 min read
TROPICAL FUCK STORM
Fairyland Codex (Fire Records)
HMM, YEAH, WHAT THEY SAID: “It’s the golden age of arseholes and the triumph of disgrace/Howling winds turn cornfields into rags/Yeah, I’ve seen the cell phone footage.”
They couldn’t have predicted it exactly, but I doubt Tropical Fuck Storm were shocked that it’s been a perfect time to be listening to this album. Unlike Brian Wilson, who once declared that he wasn’t made for these times, this quartet weren’t just made for these times, they are made by this time.
“You say it happened when you had no warning/Just Gucci revolution anecdotes of question marks and cunts in charge/Bending you over a barrel.”
So I was listening a week or so after a couple of performative freedom fighters from Australian TV found themselves in Israel as Iran returned (rocket) fire while our government contorted itself to avoid saying the obvious about what was going on, and a major media organisation was exposed pre-emptively buckling with fear at being criticised by a thuggish rival.
“Oh, I’m so sorry there’s no room for your throne, I’m so sorry there’s no real halo.”
And tuning into this at much the same time as one bunch of bovver boys took issue again with Welcome To Country ceremonies and claimed to speak for us all, a gross oligarch wedding sucked up all the air and sickened stomachs, and yet another round of performative outrage burst forth about a couple of artists (who those complaining about had not heard of five minutes before) saying maybe not everyone and everything was tickety boo around Gaza.
“Cause if you lose you win and you need’s the wind/That blows where people wave their flags at people waving flags.”
It’s not the end of the world – we aren’t going to be that lucky – though you can see its likely shape from here, and Fairyland Codex is the chronicler. However, for those who have encountered some TFS before, the chronicling is not in some updated cacophony ala German brutalists Einsturzende Neubauten, which it’s worth remembering translates as “collapsing new buildings”, and emerged from the permanently-on-the-brink-of-annihilation West Berlin of the early 1980s.
If anything, this is TFS held back, chaos controlled, capable of Bye Bye Snake Eyes’ wandering vine of an almost standard rock song and Moscovium’s twin personalities of preparation for storm and right in the maelstrom.
The clang and razoring of guitars are audible but not dominating, even in the searing Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser or the frontal assault end of Irukandji Syndrome. Unlike, say, last year’s frantic lashings in Rubber Bullies, the ragged vocals of Gareth Liddiard and the more direct ones of Fiona Kitschin and Erica Dunn, are often shaped into something where the edges are there but not always dangerously sharp, like the marvellously named dark jazz that is Joe Meek Will Inherit The Earth, or when Stepping On A Rake goes beyond even that to quite tender. The willingness to funk that shit up that made 2021’s G.A.F.F so hard to resist is given a run again, whether with something very much like swing in Teeth Marche, or looser and Slits-like in Bloodsports, where drummer Lauren Hammel carries everyone without effort.
Still capable of spitting controlled aggression at will, they’re even more potent in many ways, because saying the quiet bit out loud but still quietly, leaves less room for easy avoidance. Don’t look away you fuckers.
“There’s no safe word when the bubble explodes.” Yeah, what they said.
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Tropical Fuck Storm play:
Torquay Hotel, November 7
Archies Creek Tavern, November 8
Theatre Royale, Castlemaine, November 9
The Gov, Adelaide, November 13
The Rechabite, Perth, November 14
Marrickville Bowlo, November 21
Hamilton Station, Newcastle, November 23
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