From the double hit release of Late Teens in 2018 & Wasted Energy the following year, Press Club demonstrated with ease their ability to become punk’s latest act to look out for. Unfortunately, as with so many other bands, their plans were postponed due to the global pandemic. With the return to normality, the Australian band were able to finally perform this new material across the globe. Now, three years on from the release of their sophomore release, the band sets their sights on new horizons with Endless Motion (Hassle Records) a culmination of the tormentous past few years.
Beginning with the snap of a classic style camera, the band are brought to life with ‘Eugene’. Bright lo-fi guitar tones synonymous with the previous two albums are back, bringing a fresh indie punk feel to the music, similar to the likes of Muncie Girls & the grittier end of Wolf Alice‘s discography. All of this frenetic punk energy is rounded out perfectly by vocalist Natalie Foster‘s voice making the hard route of balancing melodic pop hooks with the rawness of the punk sound.
Endless Motion was primarily written during their travels across the globe and it truly shows in the music, songs like ‘Glasgow’ display this fast paced, hurried frenzy of traveling up and down a country in a van from venue to venue. The chorus “No sleep, no sleep, Woke up in the middle of Glasgow” encapsulates this energy perfectly. This intensity is reciprocated in the title track, less of an action-packed song showing the downside of it all. Giving an intimate, personal insight into the band’s life, Foster sings softly “Baby, I’m just feeling like my life is on fire.”
Where the band from the outside looking in can seem like another energetic punk band rocking away, listening to the words closer unveils a more thought-provoking, emotion filled body of work.
Endless Motion fully displays the extent of the highs and lows of tour life and the past three years we’ve all had to deal with. In a time where mental health has been devastated, Press Club are a band putting that to the front of their music, normalising this to the world while at the same time creating great punk music about the touring life.
They were seen as one of the bands to be looking out for and nothing has changed at all in that regard. Press Club should be one of the next punk greats.
Buy the album here: https://ffm.to/pressclub
8 / 10
CHARLIE HILL