THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Children Collide’s long-awaited comeback album has finally arrived. Some nine years after the Melbourne indie-rock trio first split — and two years after singer-guitarist Johnny Mackay and drummer Ryan Ceasar buried the hatchet and rejoined forces — they have added live bassist Chelsea Wheatley to the lineup for the mighty Children Collide, their fourth release and first new music since their 2012 offering Monument.
Recorded by Loren Humphrey at Diamond Mine & Stockholm Syndrome in New York City, Children Collide bursts out of your speakers, with Mackay and co. delivering a complex and provocative rock record that explores wider spectrums and multitudes with the fearlessness that put the band on the map to begin with. There’s the snarling, Nirvana-esque Return to Femmes, the fuzzed-out charge of opener Man of the People and the twirling, acid-tinged Trampoline to contend with — the latter of which Mackay proudly describes as “one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.” The sprawling six-and-a-half-minute wig-out of Mind Spider, too, serves as a strange bedfellow to the bouncy, mosh-ready Uh Oh — and yet, all of them make perfect sense as Children Collide songs.
The most exciting feature of their music is actually what lurks beneath all the noise and fury, with Johnny drawing inspiration for his songwriting from diverse sources like Sir David Attenborough’s Life on Earth. Indeed, a lot of the inspiration behind the band’s songwriting is not exactly what you would call normal. Johnny explains, “I got an idea for a song after reading about how the Vikings colonised Greenland and then essentially wiped themselves out after 400 years. But the song only came out after hearing Boney M.”
You are strongly advised to come to your own conclusions about their sound, but in music, comparisons are inevitable. Children Collide have had some pretty big names such as Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Fugazi thrown around, but ultimately, that’s just like one of your mum’s friends telling you how much you look like your grandmother.”
