Inexorable Opposites. Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows

Thanks to Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows my English vocabulary grew with one word, inexorable. Opposites do  not always attract it seems. At least not in the world of this Australian band. With this album the band is four albums into its career, but apart from the two singles that preceded it, it makes its debut on this blog as an album artist.

With Inexorable Opposites a very loud album is given attention. Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows play anything between stoner, psychedelic rock and nuts and bolts of metal. I can live with the comparisons the bio makes: All Them Witches, The Black Angels and King Buffalo. On a good day, there's room for these bands in my life.

To my surprise, there is no Jack Harlon in the band. It's a fictional character, from whose vantage point the lyrics are written. The singer is called Tim Couts - Smith. Behind him are Jordan Richardson, guitar, Brayden Becher, drums and Liam Barry, bass. Becher joined the band after the previous album and that even led to recording the drums differently, as in separately. The singer always has an effect on his voice, making him sound like singing through a 1930s microphone, the band is able to range between a meandering brook in a forest on a lush summer's day, to a raging, all consuming sea and back.

Promo photo

The element that astonishes me more or less, is that none of the genres mentioned above totally dominates. Of course, most of the album is more than just loud. This band rocks in capitols after all. But this is not a psychedelic band, not a metal band and not a stoner band. It is a little bit of each and tends to move more towards one side, to move to another in the next song. The only constant is the psychedelic way the vocals were recorded. Couts-Smith always hides behind effects, to create the effect he craves.

Inexorable Opposites is not for lovers of folk and delicate singer-songwriter music. But, everyone who loves their rock served up in strong doses, should definitely try this album out.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght 

You can listen to and order Inexorable Opposites here:

https://jackharlon-dawsonthedeadcrows.bandcamp.com/album/inexorable-opposites