Album Review: Fabulous Diamonds - Commercial Music

Melbourne hypnagogic duo Fabulous Diamonds have done a stellar job of eschewing every notion that has been alluded to with respect to their music by shifting their entire focus in their next recording or live performance. Such elusiveness can make them difficult to embrace, yet an interesting by-product of this aesthetic is that such unpredictability creates a vacuum whereby each new release or live performance is essentially discovering them all over again.

Third LP, Commercial Music, eschews their previous penchant for averting song and album titles, yet such acts of conformity are yet another ruse. These six tracks, from the opening insistent mantra that is Inverted/Vamp, at once outline the duo's ever-growing confidence in their craft, and there intention to confound as much of their audience as possible. The album has a much silkier production than anything they've previously put to tape (thanks to the ever-prolific Mikey Young), but if anything this heightens the physical, emotional and sexual unease that emanates from Nisa Verenosa's sultry-yet-detached vocals and Jarrod Zlatic's sensual-yet-monotonous tone. The sparse percussive elements further drive the spike home. There are allusions to sexual tension in the caress that harbours violent undertones that is Lothario and the sweaty expulsion of closer, Downhill, yet more often than not this tension is palpable, unbearably so. John Song offers a tale of Brunswick-set malaise, a weekend of debauched wastedness tied up in a hypnotic grind, whilst Wandering Eye is the closest Fabulous Diamonds have ever got to a traditionally structured song, albeit infused with a trance-like dirge.

Commercial Music is anything but. What it proves is that Fabulous Diamonds are more adept at straddling the fine line between dreamscapes and nightmares.