Different Like You
The Age
Friday July 25, 2008
Different Like You
Rocket Science (High Spot) 3.5/5Rocket Science has long been the public face of Melbourne's ever-bubbling garage-rock underground. But the mantle has never turned into a burden. They're part of the scene but they're more interested in resifting the source material than in obsessing over an obscure B-side by The Seeds. Different Like You is their fourth album and it's essentially a series of variations on established themes - refinement over revolution - that comes together with an impeccable combination of midnight passion and vintage artisanship. In turn, the quartet set up a guitar and organ groove on the torrid Different Like Everybody Else, get their grind on for Jukebox Junkie and concoct a mournful sci-fi epic with The Clones. The latter is a reminder that frontman Roman Tucker is a wary outsider, more Philip K. Dick than Jerry Garcia. When he's not charging up his theremin to provide Rocket Science's trademark flourish, he plays the lover man with existential fears. On With You I'll Be Someone he creates the ultimate synthesis: a pretty hurdy-gurdy of a tune about contemporary psychogeography. Strangely enjoying the transit, I feel so numb/Impersonal interaction, it's all so dumb, he sings, crossing the decades with ease. -- CRAIG MATHIESON
© 2008 The Age