Brisbane’s Full Flower Moon Band hypnotizes with their latest single ‘Endless Summer’, out on Impressed Recordings. These Australian psych rockers nail some of the best dualities in rock and roll here. Gritty and syrupy. Sunshine with a dark premise. Atmospheric, but desert. Smooth and spiky. Seductive, but devastating.
With lead singer and guitarist Kate ‘Babyshakes’ Dillon, along with Adam Halliwell, on guitar, there is a major retro grit that balances and highlights Dillon’s dazed, anthemic vocal. She is the devil on your shoulder on ‘Endless Summer’. Better yet, her lyrics are the voice in a manic state that tells you every single odd is in your favor, regardless of truth.
The video flashes through different cuts of Dillon. Some of her as a spirted child, some cut from a live performance, and some longer, grainy, colorless footage that feels dulled out energetically. The footage feels intimate and the timing of the splicing makes the dichotomy of chaotic highs and the flatlined lows that follow them hit even stronger.
Endless Summer is the voice of a manic episode,” says Dillon. “This hopeless, frantic optimism is summarised in the chorus lyric: ‘you can have an endless summer, anytime the sun comes out’. What began as a simple instrumental track is now unleashed onto the world as an unnerving battle cry.”
KATE ‘BABYSHAKES’ DILLON ON ‘ENDLESS SUMMER’
Bassist Luke Hodge lays down a groovy, persistent throb of a bass line that darkens and deepens the whole affair. It’s what makes the song sound more like sunset than sunrise. Meanwhile, the guitar solo at the halfway mark is a frenzied undercurrent of jazz that rips at the middle like the chaos that lies under the bliss and distorted confidence of mania.
Want some fun facts for the road? The raw, driving guitar progression that anchors the song is sampled from the 1973 song ‘Jet’ by Wings. Oh, and the snare drumroll intro brings the opening of ‘SpottieOttieDopaliscious’ by OutKast to mind for me. The drop that inevitably follows such a drumroll is sick in every context.
I love it when seemingly unrelated things I dig connect. Maybe that’s why I am compelled to listen to this track over and over again. When I’m in the mood to hear it, I play it all the way through at least twice. Three times is better though.
Listen to ‘Endless Summer’ by Full Flower Moon Band here. See if you can resist.
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