Speed Orange

Rave Magazine (Brisbane)
SPEED ORANGE – The Virgin Of Guadalupe
(5000 Records/Creative Vibes)

British ex-pat heads Melbourne folk-rock collective
Melbourne four-piece Speed Orange formed out of the ashes of a group of London filmmakers, musicians and artists. When member Tony Jackson moved to Melbourne, he retained the Speed Orange name, however the group he has assembled in the Victorian capital bares little resemblance to the rag-tag collective of bohemians left behind in London. The songs on the elaborately-titled The Virgin Of Guadalupe are pristine, focused and mostly acoustic-based songs with lush, melancholic vocal harmonies. From the stomping pop of Mother to the leisurely unrolling balladry of Vinegar And Wine, The Virgin Of Guadalupe tells well-worn tales of lost love, but delivers them with a deceptively upbeat swing, like the friction beneath the surface of a classic Everly Brothers 45. For a classic example of this, listen to the undeniably dark obsessions of This Is The End and the strange, soft sing-song use of the song’s title – you can imagine brooding to it on a grey day or singing along with it at a music festival with a big grin on your face. Jackson (along with cohorts Aaron D’Arcy, Ben Roberts and Andy Steward) has created a powerful debut that combines sadness with quietly triumphant melodies.
***½
MATT THROWER - Rave Magazine

Taken from Time Off Magazine. (Brisbane, Aus)

We All Get Exactly What We’re Asking For
(Yarraville Recording Co.)
There are plenty of rock bands in this country, but so many of them seem caught up in sounding like they come from foreign shores. But when you hear bands like The Church, Died Pretty or The Johnnys, you know exactly what wide brown lands their muse has laid her plot within.
Speed Orange have this same iconographic sense of our country’s hardship soaked heavily into the 12 songs of their second album.
Infusing a dose of outlaw country – the kind steeped in goldfield bloodshed, the kind adored by many fellow Melbourne bands of yore – tracks like She Killed Me In My Sleep and The Ballad
Of You, Me And Donnie McGee are perfect complements to the electrified pub brawls that are I Am The Devil They Call Love and Playing To The Dead. The complete lack of pretence within this music makes it so easy to feel like you’re right there with the band in the gutter staring up at the stars, and that’s refreshing.
But you can’t say that the five members of this band live in isolation, with a Compulsive
Gamblers dose of Memphis swagger making itself known through the eked-out organ melody throughout The Serpent Song and the title track. The eucalypts, however, cast the longest shadows throughout Funeral Pyre with a resolute, Louis Tillett-styled piano holding up weary words.
Never as revisionist or wild-eyed as the much-loved Drones, Speed Orange clearly stick to their strengths. Their torn and frayed rock songs are as reliable as the summer sun’s desire to beat you down – which is something you’d be hard pressed to find much of in Australian music these
days.
HHH½ Alex Gillies - Time Off Magazine - Brisbane

Album review - Beat Magazine, Melbourne

SPEED ORANGE

We All Get Exactly What We’re Asking For (Yarraville Recording Company)

The fact that it’s important to differentiate between needs and wants is symptomatic of our contemporary affluent existence. In pre-industrial times of yore, the average person needed food, shelter and clothing to survive; the religious instruction against coveting thy neighbour’s possessions quarantined gratuitous want to an envious minority.
Yet it’s another paradox of the capitalist system that at a time when so many covet unnecessary consumer goods, a disturbing proportion of the population continue to need basic items to exist.

There’s another perspective on that same human construct, and one which is closer to the heart of the title track to Speed Orange’s new album, We All Get Exactly What We’re Asking For – namely, that the modern obsession with personal effects and PR-buff ed political discourse has as its natural karmic consequence a society that eschews spiritual substance in favour of cheap entertainment.

But We All Get Exactly What We’re Asking For isn’t an indulgent philosophical treatise; it is, however, a rich and eclectic collection of tracks that span the spectrum of rock, pop and folk genres. I Am The Devil They Call Love is a classic rock ‘n’ roll lament injected with the purified essence of power pop, She Killed Me In My Sleep paints the contrasting sides of love – enlivening and deadening – into a potent folk rock collage, while The Ballad Of You, Me And Donnie McGee

(featuring vocals from Monique Brumby) is a bruising and boozing maritime call-and-response tale of love gone wrong.

Right on cue, Speed Orange loads up the fuel and burns straight into the suburban dragster rock of Playing To The Dead, while the Serpent Song is melancholic and dark, its vivid narrative edge complimented by the Nick Cave-like emotional edge. On Funeral Pyre the piano run suggests a stumble down the steps into deeper psychological chaos, while Mighty Horse is heavy with emotional pain and the harsh reality of life.

On Just Can’t Be Happy Today Speed Orange lurches down the road paved by Pink Floyd on Dark Side Of The Moon; out of the clutches of depression, Dirty Love comes out fighting like The Triffids looking for a blue in an obnoxious country pub.
Seeing Amy returns to the weighty melancholic tone before The Virgin Of Guadalupe provides a raucous rock ‘n’ roll finale to Speed Orange’s rich musical journey.

We All Get Exactly What We’re Asking For is, like life itself, a series of light, dark and heavy moments. In many ways we all do get exactly what we ask for – and if you’re asking for some good music, you should get this record.

PATRICK EMERY - Beat Magazine - Melbourne