Album Review: The Smith Street Band - 'Don't Fuck With Our Dreams'

This five-song release combines powerful yet simple punk / alternative sounds, with a vocal style and lyrics that affirm The Smith Street Band to be undeniably Australian.

The Smith Street Band are not exactly a conventional band and perhaps appeal to a niche audience. ‘Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams’ is direct, serving as a statement of intent - both bold and assertive. The song itself is introduced with vocalist Wil Wagner’s distinctive talk-singing and fairly heavy Australian accent. This along with lines like, “living in living rooms” may leave new listeners unsure as to whether the band are to be taken on face value or not at first.

However, the band’s sound is something that you adjust to and after a song or two, The Smith Street Band begin to appear like a local version of The Front Bottoms with extra punk.

Thematically, the EP is heavy on Australian mateship culture, with lines such as, “I’ve got twelve bucks, I’ve got ciggies,” in ‘Ducks Fly Together’, and talk of “sweat and beers” in ‘Kids’. The overtly everyday and ordinary events and dialogue in Wagner’s lyrics give the EP a very real feeling.

‘Bigger Than Us’ though, gets a little more serious with a personal yet universal message that is drilled in through repetition; “I’d be dead now if it wasn’t for these chords.”

This EP is real and honest, and serves as a nice break from the all-too-common perfectly polished voices, which seem to almost be churned out mechanically.

1. Don't Fuck With Our Dreams

2. Ducks Fly Together

3. Bigger Than Us

4. Kids

5. Self Control