I’ll bet that the following will come off as snobby, but I’m willing to deal with the repercussions of my printed actions.
I’m not partial to music from Australia. I never have been.
This shouldn’t be taken as a defeatist allegation. I’m very partial to Australian people - the country itself seems remarkably laid-back and beautiful. In fact, Melbourne, from what I hear, is one of the world’s most fun and creative cities. They’ve got the same allegiance to the British Royal Family that we Canadians do. They were even the first to get rid of the penny. (I hate pennies.) But the music? From AC/DC to the Presets, Australian tunes have rarely reeled me in. Only once has a record by an Aussie group ever made it to the “Most Played” on iTunes and they were a group of virtual unknowns. Still, this contempt is something that I’ve never been able to explain. It seems wrong to judge a musically diverse (and enormous) country as one. I get that. It’s not like I believe that Australia has a particular “musical formula” that aligns all of its sonic output, it’s just that no matter how hard I’ve tried, nothing’s ever clicked.
So, when I stumbled across Melbourne’s The Twerps, I was happy to find myself returning again and again to their youthful bleary-eyed pop rock. My inexplicable dislike for Australian music had been replaced with an inexplicable (and extreme) attachment to this group. But why them? Their sound is similar to many of their indie pop peers like Jeans Wilder, Kurt Vile and Real Estate. They present simple and unthreatening chord progressions. There’s a cinematic quality to their ascension, which is likeable, but typical.
But, I guess as humans our relationship with music is sometimes mysterious and unfathomable. Why doesn’t Australian music work for me? I don’t know. Why do I have to justify my fondness for The Twerps’ nostalgic Australian pop music when, really, it just feels right? Try listening to the band’s track “Coast to Coast” three times. That’s a reasonable number of plays to decide if you like something. If you like it, good. If you hate it, you don’t have to explain why. I understand.
The Twerps' self-titled album is available on iTunes.
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