It’s a good time to be an Oceanic guitar band. New Zealand’s Salad Boys and Australia’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are punching up the classic Flying Nun sound, Courtney Barnett rises in popularity in direct correlation to the mundanity of the things she sings about, and Melbourne’s King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard are making headway on their attempt to reincarnate and blow through the entirety of rock and roll history in the span of five or so years.
The next band to emerge from that milieu is ORB, who hail from the town of Geelong, an hour across the bay from Melbourne. The sludge-rock trio are set to release their new LP Birth on July 1 via those heavies from our own Bay Area, Castle Face Records, and we’re pleased to be premiering the album’s lead single, “First and Last Men.” The track, which like the rest of Birth was recorded by Total Control’s Mikey Young, has more in common with the bad-trip psychedelia of Wand and the redlining groove of Castle Face boss John Dwyer’s Oh Sees than it does the clean jangle of most of their Aussie cohort, with singer Zak Olsen’s pinched voice winding through the sludge like a serpent. You can give it a listen below.
Birth track list
“Reflection”
“New Moon”
“First and Last Men”
“Electric Blanket”
