“There is an unmistakable antipodean blood flowing through the veins of Blackbirds FC – drawing in the wide sweeping landscapes created by The Triffids and The Go-Betweens, the sparkle and energy of The Church and the themes and story telling of Paul Kelly.” Arun Kendall (Backseat Mafia)
In 2021, Blackbirds FC released the singles ‘Transport Planes‘ and ‘Island Of The Dogs‘, the first tantalising introductions to their brand new album Magiclands. Both singles had widespread community radio airplay across Australia, with the latter also getting a spin on Henry Wagons’ Tower of Song on Double J. In the wake of the great radio response, the song debuted at #10 on the AMRAP Metro charts.
Now in October 2022, the Melbourne band has released the equally sublime title-track single ‘Magiclands‘, a co-write between Jeremy Gronow and producer Cameron McKenzie. Rich and resonant, its melodies soar and sway with a heartwarming longing and romanticism, and a decidedly Australian indie rock sound. There’s a shout-out to Midnight Oil’s ‘Wedding Cake Island’ amid the gentle jangle and chug of the electric guitar, the chorus harmonies of Gronow and Gina Hearnden rising and gently crashing in unison like the waves the song references.
Like so many records of this time, COVID meant the band had to look at things differently for Magiclands.
It was rare that all five members could get together, so recording was done in small groups of one or two, with producer McKenzie. They couldn’t communicate by just hammering things out in rehearsal and instead used the bands and songs that have influenced them as a reference point. The lockdowns and isolations all added up, and a record they’d hoped to have finished and released in September 2021 became an 18-month saga.
It wasn’t all bad, though.
For the band it felt like a gift when they could get something done. Every session had a sense of adventure and excitement. Their familiarity with producer and ace guitarist McKenzie made even the long sessions fun and productive. The extra time meant Blackbirds FC could push themselves further, experiment and think through choices which is a luxury rarely available on a tight recording schedule.
There was a lot of time to listen and think and it’s a richer set of songs and arrangements for the experience. The band connected through the older, more primal influences of their youth. Bands like The Jam, The Church, XTC, R.E.M, the Hoodoo Gurus, and the Pretenders. During long lockdown walks, they reappraised their old musical flames and fell back in love with them. It felt like a more comfortable, authentic place to be.
They decided they didn’t mind showing their influences and made them reference points for the album. There’s a shout out to Midnight Oil’s ‘Wedding Cake Island’ in ‘Magiclands’ and BAD’s ‘E=MC2’ showed the way for ‘The Light Was Amber All the Time‘. It’s a song they describe as a a bingo card of 80’s and 90’s influences. R.E.M’s use of counter-melody backing vocals inspired a lot of the choruses on the album. ‘I Heard Your House Burnt Down‘ is Blackbirds FC channeling their love for alt-country; complete with banjo and ‘his and her’ vocal interplay.
On those earlier singles, ‘Transport Planes‘ channelled The Chills (circa ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ and Submarine Bells), and R.E.M’ (Life’s Rich Pageant), while the guitars and keyboards wove a melodic and uplifting mix of tough and tender melodies, with Jeremy and Gina’s voices cruise blissfully at high altitude, recalling art- pop auteurs such as Prefab Sprout. On ‘Island Of The Dogs‘, the rhythm section of Phil Campbell and Julien Chick chops and tumbles with precision and a gentle pulse, while the guitars jangle with dreamy verve.
The end result is an album that sounds utterly modern, a collection of the band’s influences filtered and reimagined in their own songs of love, enlightenment, stupidity, politics, climate change, frustration and escape. Indie rock, jangle pop, alt-country… Magiclands is a band laying it all on the line with honest, evocative and supremely catchy songwriting.
Magiclands follows the Victorian sextet’s 2019 debut album ‘Field Recordings‘, a collection of alternative country rock songs receiving acclaim from respected Australian music journalists and broadcasters such as Stuart Coupe, Noel Mengel and Paul Gough.
“A great song lives beyond your time and mine. You can find 12 of them on Field Recordings, a record to treasure when many of this year’s next big things are forgotten” Noel Mengel (Music Trust E-Zine)
“Listening to Melbourne’s Blackbirds FC’s potent folk rock synthesis on their latest “Island of the Dogs” and I couldn’t help but think of the late 70s to around ’93 as a broad sweet spot of music when there seemed to be so many styles of indie rock converging.” American Pancake blog.
Blackbirds FC are: Jeff Baker – Guitar; Phil Campbell – Drums; Julien Chick – Bass; Jeremy Gronow – vocals, guitar; Gina Hearnden – vocals, guitar; and, Bec Long – Cello.