We’ve featured a number of singles from Tape/Off‘s forthcoming full-length Fort Sensible in recent months. First with ‘Paris, Texas, Queensland‘, a song we described as “half love letter, half furious screed [which] does for the band’s home of Meeanjin/Brisbane what Last Quokka’s Red Dirt did for Kimberley,” then ‘Flat Earthers‘, which offered “a combination of defiant punk and rousing 90s alt rock, complete with a singalong chorus that somehow combines simmering frustration and carefree joy” to explore the reductive discourse of current times. Songs which suggest Fort Sensible to be their most earnest, impassioned release to date, packing a political punch while avoiding the irony which so often seeps into contemporary rock and post-punk.
With the album set to be released later this week on Coolin’ By Sound, the Brisbane outfit have shared the title track as a final single. Another example of the Tape/Off style, where infectious energy and caustic commentary combine into something both furious and fun. “The idea of the song has been floating around for ages, and it’s just venting frustration built up from years of observing the Australian political landscape,” as Nathan Pickels explains. “It seems like every time there’s a bit of hope—someone suggests an idea with serious merit—you think it’s going to get up, but it gets knocked on the head and you’re just left disappointed. It’s about that hope being crushed and feeling continually let down.” The song goes on to list these false dawns, a society where impossible pipe dreams (hello carbon capture) are favoured over real-life solutions, and public service, transport, housing and health are kicked to the wayside.
