At times of heightened and ongoing calamity, I like lyrics that focus in on the specifics. On the opening track of Melbourne Trio Cable Ties’ Far Enough we get “I’m back in Melbourne, I’m not doing the best I can, on bad days I’m a parasite, on my good days I say ‘at least I tried’. I’m getting asthma as I run for the train. Is it genetic from my family, or is it just harder to breath these days?” Which, look, doesn’t leave much out.
Musically, my first impression was that it smoldered too much where it ought to spark, particularly on side one. I wanted Cable Ties to sound less controlled in their anger. But a few spins in I realised that was the point – the anger isn’t controlled, it’s irritable, anxious; the set up (G-B-D trio) is straight Punk, but the hue of the music, the tempo, the song lengths (three clock in over six and a half minutes) give us something more claustrophobic, more frustrated.
There are moments of cathartic release (Tell Them Where To Go or Anger’s Not Enough) – and while too many would work against the whole point, each listen makes another apparent. It gains momentum with each spin.
And that’s why, as much as RTJ4 – though perhaps to a lesser extent – Far Enough is in sync with times in ways the creators couldn’t have predicted. It’s about a lot of different things – the lyrics concern the liberations of carving out a space for female-led punk, about people who’ve inherited everything they have and believe they are self-made, about irrigators bleeding the rivers dry.
But, and partly this is down to an acute sense of place, what Far Enough sounds like is how being in Melbourne right now feels, with human energy and agency pinned under lead skies.
A key line from the opener: “I might be hopeless, but if I lose hope, I bring on that ending”.
A key line from the closer: “I’m often feeling doomed but don’t confuse the feeling with apathy”.
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Apologies: Obviously, even by my standards, this review is late. I took a knock to the knee two weeks ago, swelling it up like a misshapen grapefruit, and, apart from not being able to walk since, I’ve been on painkillers that have left me foggy, sentimental, anxious and inarticulate — four distinct brands of poison to worthwhile writing that were already seeping into my pores on account of lockdown. I’m working on some kind of antidote, as we all are.
Dancing to Architecture 