Description

1LP Vinyl – BTB020

FOR FANS OF: Dirty Three, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Mogwai, Led Zeppelin

Melbourne instrumental trio Badinage release their second album Banter, following on from their impressive EP Meander (2023) and debut album Once Upon A Time (2024).

This time around, the band has stepped up the guitar distortion and introduced some striking melodic trumpet lines courtesy of Felix "Horndog” Capp, while producer Phill Calvert (The Birthday Party, The Psychedelic Furs) has contributed keyboard and bass overdubs along with a variety of sound effects that add new texture to the band’s Garage Lounge sound. In keeping with the evolution of the band, Calvert has gone for a more guitar-heavy mix on the new recordings, resulting in a wonderfully fat, almost retro 70s feel. There is a definite sense of the band journeying from the ambient Meander and harder-edged Once Upon A Time to create another fascinating iteration of their sonic landscape.

The first taste of the new album was the single 'Banter', with its wash of distortion and a rhythmic, Zeppelin-esque groove. That was followed by the single, 'Fight or Flight', with its tight-wire tension, discordant guitar rock, and rhythmic urgency. There's a real dynamism and inventiveness courtesy of the track's percussive elements, with the breathless atmosphere created in the song certainly living up to its title.

Elsewhere on the album, 'Journey' curls and snakes from the speakers, setting the tone for a good two minutes before the rhythm section locks in, propelling the song forward in metronomic lockstep until the gates truly open and the driving, snarling rock track takes full form. 'Half Full' swaps intensity for some eloquent and graceful guitar and bass melodies to dance and play off one another. 'Let Them In' recalls the Dirty Three in its judicious and poetic use of space— Simon Capp's cello hitting the heartstrings, before Dave Reid's guitar, and the trumpet, take the song skyward in a soulful rock fashion.

'Dualism' blends rainfall and new drummer Peter Cave's percussive overdubs in its dark atmospheric sound, while a Pink Floyd influence comes to the fore on 'Dreamfest'. On 'Drone Shot', the first Badinage song to feature a drum loop, the cycling guitar and winding cello create a hypnotic and evocative cinematic feel before the album concludes in typically dynamic and grand fashion with the trumpet-led fanfare of 'Finale‘—its final 90 seconds taking on a widescreen grandeur, like the sun rising over the Great Victoria Desert.

A defining feature of the Badinage sound is that there really isn't a lead instrument. At various times, Capp's cello leads the melancholic dance, often acting as the emotional compass, while the following track might be driven by the expressive and energising drumming of Cave, who has altered the tonality of the band's sounds, adding a more muscular quality. Holding the core of the music together is Reid's guitar playing, which runs the gamut from plaintive country strums to spiralling fretboard fireworks.

So often instrumental music is presented as a singular sound, but Badinage's approach to taking in numerous references and reconfiguring them in fascinating and unique formations is what makes their music such a compelling and rewarding listen, with sonic surprises and genuinely moving melodies and rhythms around each corner.