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| Popmatters |
 How about those Hoodoo Gurus! I liked the Sydney garage-poppers a lot back in the ‘80s, but like a lot of the Aussie bands that enjoyed their heyday back in those hazy days (Midnight Oil, Lime Spiders), safe money appeared to be on the quartet coasting on the nostalgia in the Land Down Under and not releasing too much in the way of new material. Then I ended up at their first NYC Hoodoo Gurus show in a decade or so. There was quite a buzz about the shows, coming on the heels of some barnstorming sets at SXSW. To almost everyone’s surprise (including the band, apparently) the place was a total madhouse. Suddenly, BB Kings felt like the old Ritz two decades previous. The Gurus played hit after hit to a mostly older, heavily Aussie ex-pat crowd that ate up every note like they had just been given the gift of hearing. Investigating after the fact, I came to find out that the Gurus were enjoying quite the resurgence back home in the Southern Hemisphere. The ‘90s found Hoodoo Gurus in a fallow period, but after a brief hiatus and a Dukes of Stratosphear-esque turn as Persian Rugs, the Gurus hit “What’s My Scene” was reworked in the ‘oughts as “That’s My Team” for the Australian National Rugby Team. The song gave them a new lease on live shows that culminated in their co-headlining Australian festival Big Day Out with Metallica. Not too shabby for a bunch of old-timers from Sydney. Hoodoo Gurus was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame in 2007, and their newly canonized selves undertook a wildly successful tour called Clash of the Titans with Radio Birdman and the Stems. Cue a spate of expanded reissues of their back catalog and a two-disc DVD retrospective complete with documentary called Be My Guru. The resurgence in popularity garnered Hoodoo Gurus a new deal with Sony Australia in 2009 and prompted the Gurus to establish their own on-line label to release their new Purity of Essence internationally. The record finds the Hoodoo Gurus continuing to ply their trade in the type of Detroit-indebted quasi-psychedelic guitar rock that had many an ass attached to a bad haircut shaking in decades past. The opening track (and first single) “Crackin’ Up” rocks in the way “Out That Door” and a gang of others have in the past for the gents. You’d be hard-pressed to find one of their contemporaries bringing it at the same high standard. All the textbook Dave Faulkner traits are in evidence: driving riff, big hooky choruses, a fair amount of that timeless musical elixir called angst, and a guitar solo that rides the track into the sunset....full text |
| Musoscribe |
| If you're a fan of the Hoodoo Gurus' best work, you tend to expect a fairly high standard in terms of quality songwriting, arrangement and that elusive takes-your-breath-away factor. And that's because on albums dating back to the Australian group's 1984 debut (Stoneage Romeos) (and yes, the parentheses are part of the title), the delivered those qualities in a major way. Straddling that line between in-your-face rock and impossibly catchy, tuneful pop, the Hoodoo Gurus -- led by songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Dave Faulkner -- turned out instant classics like "I Want you Back" and "My Girl" on that first disc. While the eventual demise of the Big Time label rendered many of that era's best albums difficult to find (think of Max Eider's The Best Kisser in the World, for example), the Hoodoo Gurus album was quickly picked up by the majors and re-released with a different cover art. And so began their successful run. Darlings of the college rock radio circuit of the 80s, the Hoodoo Gurus turned out an impressive string of albums, all of which enjoyed some measure of stateside success. Their aesthetic was an amalgam of trash-pop culture influences welded to a beefy rock hybrid. Straightforwardly rocking enough to catch the ear of mainstream rock fans weaned on Tom Petty, yet edgy enough to appeal to fans of the Replacements, the Hoodoo Gurus released seven albums of their pop-garage kitchen sink rock in the 1983-1995 period. After that, the release schedule slowed down. The group officially disbanded in 1998 but returned in the 21st century with 2004's Mach Schau, a record named after the cat-call hurled at the Beatles during their Hamburg tenure (literally "make show," it means, essentially, "work harder to amuse us!") With 2010 the Hoodoo Gurus present Purity of Essence, another aptly-named set. Right out of the gate -- as they're wont to do -- the band blasts into an anthemic tune. "Crackin' Up" (not the 50s nugget) contains faint echoes of "Out that Door" from 1987's Blow Your Cool. "A Few Home Truths" opens with a slashing, martial guitar attack evocative of the Clash's "London Calling" but the song trades in far more melodic territory. Straightforward but heartfelt harmonies brighten the chorus. A dynamic arrangement makes the track even more memorable. Even when the Hoodoo Gurus head into ballad territory, they do so in a rocking fashion. "Are You Sleeping" is a prime example of this. A drum pattern heavy on the toms and nearly bereft of cymbals gives the track a headed-for-something tension that sustains the song. The band's trademark chiming guitars shimmer, and the solo has that recorded-in-a-gymnasium feel that helped add drama to early hits like "I Want You Back." The musical dénouement never cones, but it's a lovely tune nonetheless. "Burnt Orange" introduces a left-field element to the mix: horms. Sounding like a cross between amped-up Gurus and, well, early Oingo Boingo, the song is still pretty much a standard garage rocker (and I mean that in a good way). It's easy to imagine the horn chart figure played on a Vox Continental, but that's not the approach the band employs here. Played at a breakneck pace, "Burnt Orange" ultimately sounds more like Stink-era Replacments. Well...with horns. The three-chord garage aesthetic is evident on "I Hope You're Happy," but the shouted chorus vocals make the track, well, happier, and remind this listener a bit of Katrina and the Waves, specifically their hit "Walking on Sunshine." A call-and-response lead guitar and organ interplay adds to the festivities, and again the arrangement -- something given obvious care throughout the album -- makes the already-good song more than it would otherwise be. The exuberant track quotes "Can I Get a Witness" near its end....full text |
| Heyheymymy |
| Hoodoo Gurus probably had more chance of making a sustained “comeback” than any band of their era, simply because they were never a band “of their era”. Even when they were dominating 80’s and 90’s rock radio in Australia they were always flavoured with the essence of retro and thus when they release an album in 2010 they don’t need to worry about sounding dated. They do sound dated but they always did and it was never something to worry about. Given that the Gurus decorate the album art for this new release with images including panel vans, Paul Hogan (as “Hoges”), greyhounds, tractors and early versions of exercise bikes, they clearly aren’t too perturbed about relying on the retro vibe yet again. Really its just comes down to the songs and Dave Faulkner has come up with plenty enough good ones here to amply justify the exercise. Crackin’ Up has already found favour on the radio and it’s a good rock n’ roll song but its probably eclipsed by the rollicking What’s In It For Me as the albums primo rocker. A Few Home Truths isn’t far behind. The album is produced by Charles Fisher and the band and together they do a good job of avoiding fixing what’s not broken. There’s flourishes of horns on a couple of tracks and some nice female backing vocals on a couple of others but really its about guitars bass and drums. One of the songs with the brass and the bv’s is Only In America which takes a very cool groove and kind of lets it down with a fairly predictable rant....full text |
Hoodoo Gurus lyrics
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