Equal Parts are a new post-punk band from Melbourne featuring members of established local acts CLAMM and Floodlights. Their debut single ‘A Crisis’, released this month on Tiny Town Records, introduces a sound which combines well-honed focus with a shadowy lo-fi aesthetic. Jaded spoken vocals conjure imagery of day-to-day drudgery as our protagonist wanders world-weary under cold neon lights (“As I pottered along looking down down down, at scuffed leather scuffing against cold brick / I thought about a different time”), casting a certain despondency over the track. The sense that there is struggle merely putting one foot in front of the other.
But amid the bleak, deadened mood stirs something else. A tension that promises to escalate into something oddly anthemic. The sharp insistence of the guitars and the blare of trumpet only accentuates this mood, and the vocals rise to an impassioned cry in the repeated line that serves for a chorus. “It’s a crisis that I’m going through!” Nowhere is this more apparent than in the shredding final third, where the tension breaks and Equal Parts show off a noisier, cathartic side, all tangled guitars and crashing drums. It’s nothing if not a striking opening statement, and we can’t wait to see what the band do next.