Party Dozen - Wholes

"Pray For Party Dozen is a brutal, incendiary record, filled with the kind of chaotic rock music that demands to be played live."

Sydney’s Party Dozen (saxophonist Kirsty Tickle and percussionist Jonathan Boulet) are back with a new album Crime In Australia, the follow-up to 2022’s The Real Work. The Real Work proved to be an international breakthrough for the group. Tracks such as the Nick Cave-featuring “Macca The Mutt”, the radio-friendly skronk of “Fruits Of Labour” and the epic string-drenched beauty of “Risky Behaviour” won fans far and wide, enabling the group to take their wild and intense live show across four continents.

While plenty of people all over the world have found Party Dozen to be perfectly listenable, even at their loudest and wildest, the first side does feature some of their least abrasive moments. Certainly, track 1, “Coup De Gronk” is a lower barrier-to-entry than opened any of their first three albums, described by the band as both “as catchy and danceable as we’ve ever been” and “one of Jono’s many dumb ideas”.

And closing side one is “The Big Man Upstairs”, a song arguably as conventional in structure as anything to bear the Party Dozen name. Obviously by the time Kirsty’s words have left her mouth, travelled through her sax bell and bank of pedals, and hit your ears they’ve lost all literal meaning and any right to be referred to as “lyrics”, but her intention isn’t any less clear. The loop is almost reminiscent of shoegaze, the band describing it as “a softer, sweeter side to Party Dozen. An antidote to the swash tubbery and sax honkery”

WHOLES

WHOLES is what remains after a soul has been detonated, what struck those around it, what could no longer be contained; a jet-black mixture of Gilla Band, David Bowie, Bill Orcutt, Melvins or a QOTSA from hell. Formed from components of Elefant, Pink Room, Sophia, Hypochristmutreefuzz and kolektiv. WHOLES is what a scar sounds like.