It’s kind of wild to think that just last year, Frenzal Rhomb celebrated 30 years of punk-rocking revelry - not quite as boisterous as they were in their late-‘90s heyday, but certainly much more talented… I guess everything levels out exactly how it’s supposed to!
Back when they were objectively quite shit, the Sydney crew were pumping out the tunes with impressive speed: one album each from 1995 to ’97 (Coughing Up A Storm, Not So Tough Now and Meet The Family, respectively), then after a single year off, back-to-back drops in '99 and 2000 (A Man's Not A Camel and Shut Your Mouth). The start of that sentence shouldn’t be read as an insult backhanded as it might be - because Frenzal’s two biggest drawcards in their halcyon days were their polarising roughness and conservative-baiting irreverence: they made scuzzy, adrenalised skatepunk belters for scuzzy, adrenalised skate-punk fans. They were divisive for the masses but for those that got it, Frenzal spoke a uniquely human kind of gospel, spreading their good word through music that resonated with the angst and mental turbulence of their disciples.
That ethos has beer kept fixed at Frenzal’s core over the decades - the lead single from their justreleased tenth album, , is after all titled ‘Where The Drug Dealers Take Their Kids’ - but there was a turning point, creatively, where the band decided they should try their hands at sounding more “legitimate”. According to guitarist Lindsay ‘The Doctor’ McDougall, that was around the time of 2003’s , when he realised he’d been playing guitar as
