Super Wild Horses
Fifteen
(Aarght!/Shock)

When Super Wild Horses started kicking around Melbourne venues like the Tote in recent years , the band seemed unassuming enough: two old friends transplanted from Perth playing ramshackle garage-pop. Only, they were two attractive young women – not even aged rock dogs at that – and weren’t great at playing their instruments, so suddenly this low-key proposition was subject to a disproportionate amount of scrutiny. Not that it fazed Super Wild Horses, who were too busy touring with Eddy Current, opening a day at Golden Plains, and providing a song for a Bonds commercial to give much notice.

Now, following up last year’s six-song 7-inch EP, we have the duo’s debut album. Where the EP was merrily obscured by noise and DIY naiveté, Fifteen is both more garage and more pop. The songs are still around two minutes each, and Eddy Current guitarist Mikey Young is still “producing”, but there’s a newfound clarity: we can hear the voices of Amy Franz and Hayley McKee better, understand all the lyrics, and relish a firmer musical bedrock. That said, there’s still an unfussed charm to the album, all carousing guitar riffs, knockabout drumming, and sweet harmonising.

Complete with voices cracking, the title track is an early highlight. ‘Mess Around’ proves darker and crunchier until it arrives at the suggestive refrain “Let’s mess around,” while ‘Adrian’ manages a simple but effective hook with the lyric “When my heart beats like a TKO punch.” A bit Breeders-ish vocally, ‘Love’ has a rolling bass line and dirty guitar bleed, ‘Enigma (You Say Go)’ name-checks baby Jesus, and the bargain-keyboard-kicked ‘Carolina’ announces with defiance, “I got nothing but bad advice.” Presumably a nod to TV’s evergreen Degrassi High, ‘Degrassi’ is another scrappy ball of melody and noise, followed by a final fleeting pop missive in ‘Stranger By The Day’.

That’s a dozen songs in under a half-hour. Given the short lengths and limited range of instruments, there can be an interchangeable quality to the songs. And sometimes they coast on garage-y cool between proper hooks, but there’s always a killer riff, disarming lyric, or lovely bit of vocal harmonies waiting around the next corner. Fifteen hones everything promising about Super Wild Horses into a sharp focal point, and while it’s maybe no grand feat of ambition, it’s a reliable source of bristling heat and sparks.

Doug Wallen