CIVIC are one of the many acts who have mined the same seam as Australian punk legends, Radio Birdman. Over the last two decades, many have tried to bend the Sydney veterans’ remit into different shapes and sizes – perhaps none as vibrant as the Melbourne four-piece, consisting of vocalist, Jim McCullough, guitarist Lewis Hodgson, bassist Roland Hlavka and drummer, Eli Sthapit.
Over their three-album reign, CIVIC has shapeshifted to great effect, and their latest, Chrome Dipped, sees them take their greatest leap yet, both glamourising the sound of punk and embracing its various avatars since its very beginning. Chrome Dipped’s artwork tells its own story, too – the “C” symbolising the broken link in the chain that leads CIVIC to borderless pastures.
While pivoting from the rip-and-tear sonics that made Future Forecast (2020) and Taken By Force (2023) vital reference points in the current Australian music landscape, Chrome Dipped still offers snapshots of CIVIC’s past (Fragrant Rice, a sci-fi inflected surge that sits in the same sphere as fellow Melbournites, Total Control). However, these moments are only fleeting in CIVIC’s quest to branch out with an album that may hold the test of time better than any other in their canon.
The shift is evident from the opening bar of The Fool. Their sound, flayed to the bone, echoing some of Ed Kuepper’s finest moments during The Saints’ (I’m Stranded). Thematically, it packs a punch, too, taking umbrage with those severely lacking in the self-awareness department. And The Hogg and the diesel-powered titled track are cut from the same cloth – the former sees Hodgson’s low-slung guitars and Hlavka’s driving bass lines merge for the kind of dirge punk where CIVIC take aim at narcissism and its eroding effect on society (“This is my reality / Living proof of everything”).
CIVIC - Chrome DippedThe sharpest turn on Chrome Dipped comes via Gulls Way. Over the years, McCullough has always morphed into different modes to pay tribute to the past, however he’s vocal is like never before on this occasion. A song inspired by the death of his mother who passed away prior to the release of the album (“Feel the warmth and love that this pain will bring”), here CIVIC unveil the brand of neo-psych that’s been missing from The Brian Jonestown Massacre repertoire for the last decade.
The same themes underpin Amissus, too (“I’m right beside you / In this body, I am alive”), as CIVIC streamline their sound through murky lens of punk, while the warped blues-rock of Kingdom Come barrels through the darkness of addiction. (“Go let down your hair / There’s a beauty in despair / Push the hammer in, show there’s no one there”).
McCulloch continues scouring afar on Starting All the Dogs Off – rumbling surf-rock where his vocal occupies the space between Mark E. Smith and Simon Bonney. Then there’s the sharp, strident burst of Poison, where CIVIC revel in the enclave The Damned and The Stranglers once colonised, only for Hodgson to smash through the borders with Power Trip-inspired riff-a-rolla. And where the latter is concerned, closing cut, Swing of the Noose, feels like nod to the Texan hardcore band’s excellent Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe), as CIVIC apply the necessary treatment with some Gun Club-inspired rockabilly.
It ties up Chrome Dipped as something of faux compilation of punk through the generations, and while perhaps it’s not the shift many would have envisaged, any initial indifference will soon fade as these songs slowly etch to the mind. CIVIC, finding new corners, trading in the immediacy of their past for something more reflective. These songs wash over you instead of smashing into you like a sledgehammer, and it’s this new philosophical approach that will prove vital in the chapters to come.
Chrome Dipped is out now ATO Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.
