Polish Club Announces Debut Album, Shares Single BEAT UP
By: Tori Hartshorn May. 18, 2018
Australian soul-punk duo Polish Club is excited to announce their debut album Alright Already, due August 10, 2018 via Universal Australia. To ring in the announcement, the band has shared new single "Beat Up," which is available to stream HERE. The duo also shared the video for the single -- a dizzying, black and white flurry of data-moshing and high-energy performance -- which is available to stream HERE.
Like that ill-advised third espresso on a 2-minute, 37-second coffee break, the pair's frantic chemistry infiltrates in "Beat Up"'s double-time verse before a full scale attack on the nervous system in a paint-stripping chorus. "I thought, 'What if I just sing as loud as I can and see if I can stay in key?'," vocalist and guitarist Novak muses on the genesis of a blunderbuss vocal presence that's made Australian jaws hang open in unison through escalating tours of sold-out club shows across the great southern land. All of that and more is what is on display here, to a stunning effect.
Having just capped an Australian tour with Royal Blood, and just ahead of another Australian run accompanied by a five-piece brass combo, Polish Club are hungry to bring their impossibly high-octane show to as many people as they can. Expect more information about Alright Already, tour dates and more in the coming weeks.
One guitar. One voice. One drum kit -- frequently bloodied, sometimes broken. The modest tools can only begin to tell the story of Polish Club, the sweat-soaked Aussie soul-punk duo with a heart-wringing knack for ass-kicking rock tunes and a gift for burning down every room they play.
"I think our strength is in the limitations of the two-piece band," says the keeper of the aforementioned drums, John Henry. "When you've only got guitar and drums, you can't just... play. You've got to give more. Physically."
As the blood on his knuckles attests, that's the way it goes when he and singer-guitarist Novak hit the decks. That's both on stage, where they've left a simmering throng of devotees dripping and spent across their home continent, and on the prolific run of pulse-palpitating singles that have kicked holes in polite company since "Able" and "Beeping" announced a garage revolution.
"I knew he was a drummer and I think he knew I could sing," Novak says of his formative musical conversations with an occasional drinking acquaintance around Sydney's north shore. "It was his idea: 'Hey, how about we just book a room for three hours and see if we can play together?' That was about it."
The result -- the savage swing of vintage rock'n'roll colliding with the pleading pitch of classic, gravel-gargling soul -- was "just about playing to the strength of the people involved," John Henry shrugs. "We play hard and fast and loud with kinda simple guitar lines, and Novak has a voice that manages to push a lot of air. We probably sound so big because his voice is actually physically very loud. Like, if he sings without a mic in a room, you can't talk to the person next to you."
Early tours opening for the likes of Courtney Barnett and Gang of Youths were loaded with a dangerous sense of portent. "A gritty garage rock two-piece unafraid to throw themselves into the action," the AU Review observed. Come 2017, the duo were selling out their own shows and running ragged rings around the sprawling festival circuit of the great southern land.
"We both agree on where we're going, so it doesn't really matter how we get there," says Novak. "Fortunately, we don't have to think about that or reflect on it."
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