The Golden Age

The Golden Age - Mexico City Bees (Red Recordings)

If The Golden Age is any indication, musicians from The Land Down Under have been influenced by some of the hipper bands from “up above.” Mexico City Bees is laden with tracks that could be outtakes from Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted sessions, or lost recordings from Sonic Youth decades ago. This Australian quartet has produced a solid album offering and could soon climb the industry ladder.

Many of the songs on Mexico City Bees draw you in with guitarist Dallas Houldsworth’s hypnotic vocals and alluring reverb guitar. The songs range from more poppy, 80s-sounding tunes like “We’ll Be Here,” to rocket-charged guitar punk, such as “My Work is Done.” But there’s more; the band can turn rhythmically enticing a la The Dandy Warhols, and Kat Harley provides excellent vocals on distinctly lush and ethereal numbers.

Favorite Track: Track 5, “The Desert Song”

Roland Goity
OnlineRock.com
23/03/06



- Online Rock

From the name alone, you'd expect some second rate Strokes-influenced band. Instead, this debut record is a Sonic Youth inspired sprawling rock album.

Understated and subtle at times, abrasive and noise-prone at others, what holds the record together is the bare-boned honesty of the music.

No haircuts or badge cred, just good rock music.

Martin Slattery - Sydney Observer

The Golden Age

Mexico City Bees (Red Recordings)

Fuzzed guitars generate a melodic drive that is equal parts sunny pop
and brooding menace. A rhythm section as tight as Julian Casablancas's
pants finds an unstoppable groove. Vocals sounding like a chain-smoking
Beck soothe you with subtle melody before smacking you in the face with
a freewheeling punk howl. You are in the midst of The Golden Age.

For its debut album, this Sydney four-piece has created the soundtrack
to a week's worth of amphetamine and booze-driven nights on the town,
complete with all the woozy comedowns.

Tracks such as single Dirty Bird and Another Girlfriend combine Sonic
Youth's distorted squall with Pavement's laidback pop sensibility but
remain danceable. Uh-Huh has the bombast of Ziggy-era Bowie while
Saturday Morning hints at psychedelia.

By flirting with diverse influences and moods, The Golden Age displays
considerable scope and room for growth, making its debut a launching
pad pointed towards numerous possible musical directions. What is
certain is that those directions are all pointing up. — Nick Craven
- Canberra Times

THE GOLDEN AGE – Mexico City Bees
(Red Recordings)
" The boring buzz from Sydney

Christ! I’m so fucking sick of Australian bands that sound like NOTHING. Guitar? Check. Bass? Check. Drums? Check. List of early-‘90s American indie bands as influences? Check. Pub and festival gigs? Check. Recording time? Check. Not to say that The Golden Age aren’t proficient at what they do, sure they can play, but frankly I’d rather watch paint peel off a wall than hear anymore of this insipid music that sounds like it belongs on the opening credits of Secret Life Of Us.

The band redeem themselves in part with the sultry drone of Manage This but for the most part Mexico City Bees is so samey and bland that you’ll be wishing it left a bad taste in your mouth as opposed to none at all.

ANDREA BLAKE
- Rave

In cricketing terms The Golden Age refers to the early 20th century period when well bred chaps donned well starched flannel trousers and colourful striped jackets to strike slightly awkward cigarette card cricketing poses. It was probably the closest the cricketing world has ever had to a mod phase – even if the players themselves had absolutely no concept of cool, in hindsight (especially compared to today's motley selection of media savvy bogans) the combination of smart fashion and aloof demeanour created the visual image of the smart, cool, modern professional.
Sydney's The Golden Age have nothing whatsoever – as far as I can discern – to do with cricket (or mods for that reason). But there's certainly a cool aesthetic about them and their music that just about justifies the gratuitous link between their name and cricket ancestry. It's a statement of cool that could be frustrating and pretentious if not backed up by some quality music – and thankfully it is. And like a old cigarette card of CB Fry, the band's debut album, Mexico City Bees, should become a worth addition to any collection.

While probably lying somewhere between the new wave and no wave movements of the late 1970s and early 1980s, The Golden Age has plenty of variation – there's plenty of Sonic Youth melancholic artistic observation mixed with Blondie post-punk pop licks in both Dirty Bird and New Distraction. Balancing the silt and feedback laden guitar sound of My Work is Done – and a Dirtbombs inspired escapade with the manic 30-second garage fest Mexico City Bees – are the reserved, reflective and acoustic flavoured moments of We'll Be Here and The Desert Song, as well as the spiced up Psychedelic Furs feel of Another Girlfriend. And underpinning it all – best illustrated by Uh-Huh – is a sense of style that combines Bryan Ferry at his suave glam rock peak with Marc Bolan's eye for popular appeal.

The Golden Age may just be the best thing to come out of Sydney in many a year; and as far as debuts go, this is worthy of serious attention. If Molly was spinning discs on community radio, he'd be telling everyone to do themself a favour and indulge themselves in The Golden Age.

PATRICK EMERY - Beat magazine Melbourne Australia

In case your've been in hiding, The Golden Age have created the kind of hype The Vines blossomed on but neither vocalist Dallas nor guitarist Kat are wearing heaving gold clocks from their necks.

Alot of the time you think this is overwhelming and a bit full on; we're far from rock stars but we've had to adjust,"Kat says. "For the last year we've been handing out our demo at gigs - that's how the whole word of mouth thing started."

Dallas; "We had been in other bands before and done the old thing of recording some shit sounding EP with not much money which did nothing. This was like, well, we'll do demos and we didn't care about the money so much, we just gave them away." And with that came a rare artistic freedom.

"We didn't know if people would like it"

Truth is, lots of people do. Mexico city bees is the Sydney based band's first LP, no formal release has come before it - a rare trust from any label, let alone a small indie.

The quartet are about to play Homebake for the second time, this time its a little more planned after they won the Hopetoun challenge in 2004 and were given a slot on the festival."

Dallas: "It feels more of an acheivement this year - we're actually there becuase we have been asked"

So success has happened largely outside the industry, not that the suits didn't do their best to commodify the sounds before Mexico City Bees was laid down. Dallas wasn't having any of it. "We did meet some industry people who said oh no, you shouldn't be giving your music away for free and crap like that. These were people who had been in the industry for a while and were used to a certain procedure. You care more about people getting your music and not making money."

The Golden Age signed to Red Recordings and about three months later had an album - but there was only one problem, no one really knew about them. That's changing and given you've stuck with me this far you're either in the band or really want to know if all the rumours about The Golden Age are real.

Dirty Bird opens Mexico City Bees with a swaggering chorus and sets the tone for the uber cool flip-the-bird indie rock The Golden Age delve into. Their record label has mouthed Pavement and Sonic Youth but they're only there in the background.

Dallas "I think about a month after we did the record that I wrote my first new song and I was really happy because I thought, oh okay, we can do this."

Story by Peter Veness

- Drum Media Sydney Australia