Lower Plenty: Sister Sister

Lower Plenty is barely a band at all. Each of the members works with other notable Australian groups — Deaf Wish and Dick Diver, to name a couple — and they occasionally converge to write and record a record as Lower Plenty. So this group is a sporadic family reunion of sorts. It has been said that the members get around a kitchen table to compose and even record their new songs, which just adds to the casual nature of their narrative. However you frame their formation, the music over the years has stayed mostly the same: loose, relaxed, and vaguely folky.

The band’s debut, 2013’s Hard Rubbish, had a simple homespun feel. The production is nearly nonexistent, and the songs are without the trappings of the studio. Basically, the album sounds like a group of friends ran through a few songs with whatever instruments happened to be lying around, pressed record, ended up liking the results, and released it on a whim. 2014’s record, Life/Thrills, is much the same but with an added factor: intensity. The band was a little noisier and occasionally heavier than previous. Furthermore, here is where the band began to flirt with a Velvet Underground fascination. In spots, like the disorientating track “Concrete Floor”, the group channels the avant-garde side of VU via “European Son” and “The Murder Mystery”.

The group’s newest release, Sister Sister, is a step forward for the group. In the past, the group’s ramshackle compositions, barely in-tune instruments, and “first take” vocals signified a casual “whatever” approach. Now, the group has made a move towards something a little slicker, more intentional. The production is cleaner, the instruments sound either in-tune or else intentionally out-of-tune, and the occasional avant-garde freak-out has an air of experience that the group could not evoke before this time.

The lead-off track, “Bondi’s Dead”, fits right in with other Australian contemporaries such as Twerps or Dick Diver — namely, stable, warm guitar rock led by quirky vocals. Later, though, is where the group lets their identity shine. The second track, “Glory Rats”, is so simple and clear in its production and construction it’s regal. The third track, “So It Goes”, rolls along like a track off of Velvet Underground & Nico, brooding strings and all. By this track, something jumps out: each song has had a different vocalist. Like the New Pornographers before them, this group is composed of individual artists that can stand on their own but chose to join to make the best possible tunes.

If there is any complaint with the record, it would be that the songs still occasionally come off as off-the-cuff or undercooked. For one, the album is lyrically fairly bland. A majority of the songs are just filled with what seem like place-keep lyrics that were never replaced. Occasionally, the vocalist just begins repeating a lyric or set of lyrics to send the song out. The undercooked feel stands out the most on the track “On Off On Off” in which the vocalist sounds like she was reading an entry from her diary to a track she had never heard before she stepped in the vocal booth.

Overall, the record is a step up from past efforts. The album still sounds a little slapped together, but that adds to the appeal at times. Also, its tones are warm and welcoming, like maybe the fireplace was being stoked in the background as the group composed these tracks. You know… while they compose around the kitchen table.