It’s hard to imagine a more fitting introductory single for Gold Class than ‘Life As A Gun’. The fledgling Australian post-punk band have – true to the song’s title – begun with a bang, going from relative unknowns in their own country to among its most celebrated exports in a mere matter of months. They built their reputation quickly, thanks to an intense, incendiary live show (which NME witnessed at first hand during SXSW last month) and an impressively realised debut album.
‘It’s You’, recorded in four days and released in Australia last September, is by turns urgent, strident and defiantly political. And while the band’s sincerity is never in doubt, at times their politics can be difficult to decipher, which suits frontman Adam Curley just fine. “It’s important to me to be political, but that doesn’t mean we’re behind any one agenda. The personal can be very political to me,” he says.
Indeed, the band revel in this apparent paradox, crafting songs that are loud and dyspeptic yet strangely intimate. Curley may have an Ian Curtis-esque croon, but where the late Joy Division frontman used his to chilling effect, Curley’s is compelling in a way that connects, drawing listeners closer as if to let them in on a secret. Asked to reconcile these seemingly warring impulses – his desire to connect yet make music that pushes at the margins – Curley suggests that agitation and big ideas need not always be so obvious. “I wouldn’t consider myself an activist,” he says. “But I’d hope our music can and will be an instrument of change.”
GOLD CLASS: THE DETAILS
Based: Melbourne
Social: @goldclassband
Buy: Debut album ‘It’s You’ is available via Felte Records
Live:
April 11 Bristol, Start The Bus
Fact: Frontman Adam Curley is also an accomplished writer. His articles have appeared in Mess + Noise, The Sunday Age and The Big Issue.