“Sometimes you worry that the odds are against you when you actually reach the goals you’re shooting for,” says Kenny-Smith. “It comes back to that question of the things people tend not to talk about, whether it has to do with drug abuse or mental-health issues or whatever else.” Meanwhile, “Skyrocket” marks one of the most introspective moments on Bittersweet Demons, expanding on a piece composed by Shortal and slowly unfolding as an epic meditation on the artistic temperament. “That song’s about a someone I’ve known a long time and, each time I see them, I’m amazed that they’re still alive,” says Kenny-Smith. On “Eating at You,” The Murlocs slip into a pensive mood, building off one of Blach’s demos to deliver a delicately bluesy number laced with plaintive harmonies and lush pedal steel.
Her larger-than-life personality and attitude revolves around a sometimes-unworldly way of living in the moment.” Sparked from a demo brought in by Karmouche, “Francesca” kicks off with the rev of a car engine and roar of harmonica, supplying a shot of pure joy that fully captures the sensation of “driving down the coast with the convertible roof down” (as Kenny-Smith describes the song’s inciting image). “She has such an energetic aura of love that comes with compelling conviction. “‘Francesca’ is my mother’s middle name,” Kenny-Smith explains.
On the album-opening “Francesca,” he turns the lens to his mother and sweetly celebrates her joie de vivre, gently alluding to past struggles with depression. “It might look like they’ve got everything figured out, but there’s always those underlying demons that no one realizes.”Ī lifelong musician, Kenny-Smith makes for a masterful narrator, endlessly revealing his gift for inhabiting the inner worlds of others. With its moody piano tones and softly sprawling arrangement, the song took shape soon after the 2019 death of Kenny-Smith’s dear friend Keegan Walker, whom he remembers as a force of nature who “looked at life in such a beautiful and unique way, and had a major impact on everyone he ever crossed paths with.” “‘Bittersweet Demons’ is about someone who can chop and change between partying hard and then getting healthy and seeming very levelheaded,” Kenny-Smith says. The result is an album both exuberant and heavy-hearted, a dynamic that wholly fulfills Kenny-Smith’s mission of “always aspiring to write songs that have a bit of twisted positivity to them.”Įqual parts character study and adoring homage, Bittersweet Demons takes its title from the track that catalyzed the album’s entire concept. Naming John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Harry Nilsson’s Lennon-produced Pussy Cats among their key reference points, the band adorned their songs with many unexpected details: woozy Wurlitzer melodies, Brian May-esque guitar harmonies, playful atmospheric elements like the whoosh of summer rain, caught by a microphone dragged into the street mid-storm. With their lineup including two members of the globally beloved King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (Kenny-Smith and Craig), The Murlocs recorded at Button Pushers Studio in Melbourne with producer Tim Dunn, dreaming up a prismatic sound that pinballs from sunshine-pop to blues-punk to wide-eyed psychedelia. What emerges is a beautifully complex body of work, one that shines a light on the fragilities of human nature while inducing the glorious head rush that accompanies any Murlocs outing.
The most personal and boldly confident work yet from the Melbourne-based five-piece-lead singer/guitarist/harmonica player Ambrose Kenny-Smith, guitarist Callum Shortal, drummer Matt Blach, bassist Cook Craig, keyboardist Tim Karmouche-the album sets that storytelling to 11 infectious tracks written mostly on piano, lending a greater emotional intensity to the band’s restless and radiant brand of garage-rock. On their fifth album Bittersweet Demons, The Murlocs share a collection of songs reflecting on the people who leave a profound imprint on our lives, the saviors and hellraisers and assorted other mystifying characters.
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