In each of the past two years, I have written rave reviews of Nasty Party, a punk/new wave duo based out of Sydney and London. My third write-up on this band will be no less glowing. With their latest EP Loaded Dice, Simon and Rhys have truly outdone themselves. In fact, I can think of no band today that does a better job of combining impassioned political lyrics with music that's tremendous fun to listen to.
While Nasty Party has always drawn from both the punk and new wave sides of 1977, Loaded Dice leans a little more in the punk direction. The fast-paced title track delivers a jolt of energy along with an earworm shout-along chorus. "I Can't Stand the Radio" puts on a clinic on how to emulate the Ramones without trying to be the Ramones. "I Just Wanna Be a Primate" hits dead center in the '77 punk sweet spot. Even if these guys were singing about total nonsense, I'd be into it. But far from spouting nonsense, these songs rail against very specific injustices and outrages. "Loaded Dice" concerns draconian lockout laws in Sydney which have decimated the city's nightlife but conveniently don't apply to nearby casinos that pour money into the local government. "I Can't Stand the Radio" reflects on how the daily grind of working life can kill you both figuratively and literally. Inspired by the actual practice of the Australian government administering random drug tests and selling the DNA results to third parties, "I Just Wanna Be a Primate" rages against the constant invasions of privacy that are unavoidable in modern life. The facts behind these songs (drug-sniffing dogs and strip searches at railway stations, work-related suicides necessitating jumper nets outside of office buildings, the unauthorized mining of our most personal data) will absolutely make your blood boil. What do you do with all of that anger? Simon and Rhys channel it into crackling punk rock tunes that are fun to sing along with but also sure to get you fired up.
With three fantastic EPs now in the books, Nasty Party deserves inclusion on the short list of groups making Australia's punk scene the best on the planet. And these guys are just now hitting their stride. Something tells me that they will not be running out of lyrical inspiration anytime in the near future!
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