Fairyland Codex by Tropical Fuck Storm
'Fairyland Codex' by Tropical Fuck Storm
The illusion of chaos agitates some of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll, from Little Richard to Full of Hell. Tropical Fuck Storm makes that illusion particularly realistic: Fairyland Codex, the Australian quartet’s fourth album, often feels ready to collapse, explode, or spiral out of control.
However, musical expertise permeates and contains that feeling and illusion. As rough-hewn as the presentation can be, given the personnel’s indie and punk backgrounds, even the shaggiest song gets groomed into something sleeker.
The shaggiest is “Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser,” in which Lauren Hammel’s loping percussion and sudden bursts of drums come up against Fiona Kitschin and Erica Dunn’s low-fi version of B-52s harmonies, Gareth Liddiard’s hoarse hollering, and guitars and bass that lunge among several tempos and toward a loose melodic throughline.
The sleekest is “Goon Show,” with the sharpest production, a warped guitar solo that heightens the resigned desperation of the lyrics, and a rhythm that might be Kitschin and Hammel’s semi-digitized homage to the disturbed bounce of Napoleon XIV’s 1966 novelty hit, “They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”
In contrast to the scathing “normal” of this band—epitomized by “Irukandji Syndrome,” in which Kitschin’s dexterous bass steadies the squalling tale of a giant, talking jellyfish—Liddiard sings with genuine and tender love on “Stepping on a Rake,” and Dunn sings with especial plaintiveness on the Fleetwood Macian folk-rock of “Bye Bye Snake Eyes.”
The more familiar pleasures of this band remain, including a languorous and fluctuating epic (the nearly nine-minute title track), a sonically experimental mood piece (“Joe Meek Will Inherit the Earth,” with TFS tourmate Michael Beach providing Manzarek-adjacent electric piano), and an obliquely historical, ragingly high-voltage roof-raiser (“Moscovium”).
Overall, Fairyland Codex finds Tropical Fuck Storm easing toward accessibility that the band’s own name seems to deny. The denial, like the chaos, could be illusory. The rock‘n’roll is real.
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