EVEN before COVID unleashed a raft of anti-vaxxers and virus sceptics onto social media, Tropical F--k Storm mined the paranoia of the conspiracy world.
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So naturally TFS were perfectly suited to our times. The Melbourne four-piece's third album Deep States unashamedly sounds as maddeningly as life in lockdown, but in a thrilling way.
It's an idiosyncratic march of sci-fi punk, prog-psych and jazz with even traces of '80s hip-hop as Gareth Liddiard delivers some of the greatest one-liners of his esteemed career. There's "if they ever come back/ we'll be waterboarding Martians" on G.A.F.F and "omen eaters speaking in cap locks/ Jim the shepherd bleating at a sleeping flock/ Jesus of Methlahem don't need blue beam" on Blue Beam Baby.
The tension ramps up on the lockdown-inspired Bummer Sanga where Liddiard is so bored of watching TV "his mind is gone."
Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin have been evolving since The Drones' final album Feelin Kinda Free (2016). After two TFS records with Erica Dunn and Lauren Hummel, the transformation is complete on Deep States.