Album Review: Millions - Max Relax

Brisbane lads Millions had a cracker of a debut EP a couple of years back with Nine Lives, Six Degrees. Tracks like Going Overseas got the four-piece well earned radio spins, a solid fanbase and support slots where they almost upstaged the likes of San Cisco and The Jungle Giants. All that initial and swift success was bound to warrant looking further afield and that’s exactly what the guys did for Max Relax, reining in guitarist Ted Tilbrook’s producer father Glenn, of 1980s hit-makers Squeeze, and jetting off to London to record it.

A first listen of Writing On The Wall and Always prompts fears that it’s all gone a bit to their heads. It’s as though their debut LP has polished off all those nice rough, jangly edges and replaced them with a cleaner, upbeat gloss that wasn’t in their previous shoegazey heart-wrenchers. But B Chill and Unchained retain those moody, cynical sentiments with their sombre waltzing lilt and Dom Haddad’s lush croon, and thankfully it continues throughout. Daydreaming has potential single written all over it, those dreamy guitars returning with Haddad’s wails, and boppy Agony & Ecstasy channels a cited influence in Babyshambles.

Providing the sadistic joy one revels in when listening to star-crossed lover brooding is one of the things that Millions does best, and it’s helped them stand out as mature young songsmiths so far. Some more of that old edge wouldn’t have gone astray on Max Relax, but their sound and romantic lyricism has been retained, if only slightly at the mercy of neater production and experience at the helm.