This is not a record for all occasions, this is music that needs to be felt as well as heard. You should be present for every gloomy moment of “The Real Work”, the third album from Sydney duo Party Dozen, from the doom riff that opens it to the dusty trip hop beat that shuts it down.
Do that and you’ll uncover endless highlights. The psychedelic propulsion of ‘The Worker’ will send you back in time, the creepy ‘Earthly Times’ comes across like Naked City without the pretence, while ‘Major Beef’ sounds like The Budos Band if they were possessed by evil spirits.
Doesn’t matter what you call it – punk, noise, indie rock, metal, shoegaze, jazz – so long as you play it loud and let it take over, you’ll get a whole lot out of “The Real Work”. Oh, Nick Cave’s on there too.
A labour of love and a love of the labour, in The Worker the wild synth, drum, and sax duo, Party Dozen, moved through the Phoenix’s liminal spaces of light and dark, glare and gloom, vibrant and vanish. Flaring, flashing lights, and a little too much smoke machine. “We wanted this track to feel like something you could start your day to. A sonic salutation for the bored and sanitised. And after postponing our ‘Pray For Party Dozen’ Album tour for almost 12 months, ’The Worker’ felt like part cathartic outlay of locked-down frustrations, and part jubilation… finally picking up our tools and getting back to work.” – Kirsty Tickle, Jonathan Boulet (Party Dozen) “The raw energy dynamic between Party Dozen is explosive and alive. I felt like I was watching two planets violently orbit. This production uses Phoenix as the gravity in this equation as our two performers drift inwards the ceiling and light installation by Sam Whiteside collapses in on them to reinforce their sonic super nova.”
The Fat Angel Sings 