The world has changed a lot since 2002, to say the very least. Up until that December, Midnight Oil had thrived as Australia’s premiere protest band, cranking out a lengthy string of rock hits as poignant politically as they were musically. And though its members stayed active in the social justice movements of the 21st century – frontman Peter Garrett even going so far as to become a minister – the band itself called it quits after their 11th album, 2002’s Capricornia.
Now – amid a global pandemic, a myriad of disasters incited by climate change, the mainstream rise of far-right malice and World War III on the cusp of eruption – the Oils have returned to soundtrack the revolution of the 2020s. As longstanding, the band now see themselves as the elders of Australia’s political rock movement. But that doesn’t make – their 12th full-length effort, riding on the heels of last year’s mini-LP – any less intense, provocative or insightful.
