They're back.
Midnight Oil have returned to the air-web with their new song, Rising Seas. Unsurprisingly, it's very good; all the trademark sounds that have made the band both distinctive and iconic are present and accounted for, but sufficiently tweaked to avoid accusations of recycling old glories. It's a vital piece of music, plaintive and excoriating in equal measure, and as timely as anything they've ever released. The world has its eyes squarely on Glasgow. And the Oils have made it very, very clear that they are watching, too.
The lyric is bluntly on point. As a generation of adults, we have failed our children. The planet is in absolutely dire straits. Our 'leaders' are blithering, bloviating idiots, and as a nation, we are a global embarrassment. We have a shamefully inept Federal Government pandering to the brain-adjacent clowns in the National Party, in a craven attempt to hold onto political power. Meanwhile, the weather becomes increasingly extreme. Species struggle and disappear. Entire nations slowly sink under water. Eight years wasted. The clock's ticking is getting louder and louder.
The Oils have never shied away from being spokesmen. Frankly, it's dispiriting that no band has stepped in to receive the baton from them. In their absence, there was silence. But now that they're back, it's clear that they've still got an incredibly powerful voice, and they're using it - as they've always done - to speak for those who cannot easily speak for themselves. Here, it's our children, and the planet itself. Mournful, apologetic, blunt, angry, defiant, but tonally, there's still hope. Perhaps the rising seas could be more than devastation; perhaps they could be the swell of change, finally powerful enough to sweep away denialists, pocket-lining miners, cowardly politicians, and every other voice of obstruction and excuse.
Hirst plays just behind the beat, deep in the groove. The late, great Bones Hillman provides the pulsing bass that's always been a feature of the Oil sound. The twin guitars of Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie twang and chime. And Peter Garrett sings, his voice rich, every world articulated with the clear punch of a typewriter. No emoting, only emotion. This is the sound of band that knows itself inside and out. They play a festival, they play last. No one's ever been foolish enough to follow Midnight Oil, the band with a catalogue of anthems that's thicker than IKEA's, and an on-stage chemistry that could blow-up a coal mine. This is why the Oils matter; they are authentic, they are on point, and they are better than the rest.
Play it loud.
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