{"id":3040,"date":"2025-06-23T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/tropical-fuck-storm-batten-down-the-hatches\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T14:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:30:00","slug":"tropical-fuck-storm-batten-down-the-hatches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/tropical-fuck-storm-batten-down-the-hatches\/","title":{"rendered":"Tropical Fuck Storm Batten Down the Hatches"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/TROPICALFUCKSTORM_BY-JAMIE-WDZIEKONSKI.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Tropical Fuck Storm (Credit: Jamie Wdziekonski)\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cYeah, the whole world\u2019s at death\u2019s door now \/ And they\u2019re pickin\u2019 at the lock!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gareth Liddiard snarls wearily about a quarter of the way through the nearly 9-minute title track of Tropical Fuck Storm\u2019s new album, the band\u2019s fourth. It\u2019s familiar territory for the Australian quartet, who\u2019ve been celebrating catastrophe and embracing disaster since they formed in 2017. (The name of their 2024 live record: <em>Tropical Fuck Storm\u2019s Inflatable Graveyard<\/em>). But <em>Fairyland Codex<\/em>, arriving on June 20, carries a new undertone: sadness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/a-decade-of-feeling-emotion-looking-back-at-carly-rae-jepsens-most-underrated-album\/\">A Decade of Feeling \u2018Emotion\u2019: Looking Back at Carly Rae Jepsen\u2019s Most Underrated Album<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/chaos-and-control-the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-again-of-liam-and-noel-gallagher\/\">Chaos and Control: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of Liam and Noel Gallagher<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/summer-smash-young-thug-travis-scott\/\">Young Thug Welcomes Travis Scott, T.I. At First Post-Jail Show<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/Fairyland-Codex-cover-by-Joe-Becker.jpg\" alt=\"The cover of Tropical Fuck Storm's new album, \u2018Fairyland Codex\u2019 (Credit: Joe Becker)\" class=\"wp-image-466766\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/Fairyland-Codex-cover-by-Joe-Becker.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/Fairyland-Codex-cover-by-Joe-Becker-340x340.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/Fairyland-Codex-cover-by-Joe-Becker-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/Fairyland-Codex-cover-by-Joe-Becker-498x498.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The cover of Tropical Fuck Storm\u2019s new album, \u2018Fairyland Codex\u2019 (Credit: Joe Becker)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sure, there\u2019s still plenty of the twisty, degraded guitar squall that drenched the band\u2019s 2018 debut, <em>A Laughing Death in Meatspace<\/em>, whose Maurice-Sendak-meets-Peter-Max cover art <em>Fairyland Codex <\/em>mirrors<em>. <\/em>And Liddiard still sounds like a cross between the Big Bad Wolf and Mad Max, his gleefully malevolent musk balanced out by tart harmonies from bassist Fiona Kitschin and guitarist\/keyboardist Erica Dunn, as opener \u201cIrukandji Syndrome\u201d amply demonstrates. But starting with the second track, \u201cGoon Show,\u201d in which Liddiard channels Nick Cave over a stomping bass line and drum-machine ricochets, Tropical Fuck Storm move away from freaky glandular decadence and toward something harder and stranger. \u201cGoon Show\u201d may start off dark and streamlined, but it warps and melts midway through, before ending in an eerie shuffle, with Liddiard assessing the damage: \u201cSee everybody scream and shout \/ They don\u2019t know what they\u2019re missing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"t663s10WwPE\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The brooding \u201cStepping on a Rake\u201d approaches a full-on ballad, with Liddiard and the rhythm section turning in an eerily restrained, aching performance. This newfound tenderness carries its own ambivalence, however\u2014\u201cDon\u2019t worry about stormy weather,\u201d Liddiard sighs, a sly reference to the band\u2019s provocative name. Joined by Kitschin and Dunn, Liddiard declares, \u201cSo far, nothing has changed,\u201d in the first chorus, meaning it as both reassurance and complaint. Apocalypse hovers eternally on the horizon, but never quite arrives, and in the meantime, love only just holds despair at bay. \u201cI\u2019m still your island when you\u2019re washed away,\u201d Liddiard sings, delivering the affirmation in a melancholy murmur that acknowledges not just the creeping untenability of the situation, but its possible undesirability.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After the halfway point of the title track, the band leans harder into chaos, as if they\u2019d lost the ability to hold the center or just abandoned the effort altogether. \u201cDunning Kruger\u2019s Loser Cruiser\u201d and \u201cBloodsport\u201d swing wildly between nihilistic funk and disjointed no wave sing-alongs, while \u201cJoe Meek Will Inherit the Earth,\u201d whose title puts the pioneering, homicidal British producer in conversation with the Bible, rides a cool post-punk groove. The back half of the album might lack the impressively mournful desperation of the first few songs, but, if nothing else, it shows that it\u2019s still possible to kick it after all the locks have been blown off, and death\u2019s door stands wide open.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYeah, the whole world\u2019s at death\u2019s door now \/ And they\u2019re pickin\u2019 at the lock!\u201d\u00a0 Gareth Liddiard snarls wearily about a quarter of the way through the nearly 9-minute title&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,117,24,1923],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-new-music","category-pushly","category-tropical-fuck-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}