Great Emu War Casualties: It is Not Fun, It's Not a Hat (CDS on Great Emu War Casualties)

Band: Great Emu War Casualties
Label: Great Emu War Casualties
Title: It is Not Fun, It's Not a Hat

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Band:Great Emu War Casualties
Title:It is Not Fun, It's Not a Hat
Reviewed By:John Clarkson
Date Published:01/03/2018

Label:Great Emu War Casualties
Format:CDS
Release Year:2018
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The Great Emu War Casualties are very much an international group. While Joe Jackson (vocals and guitar) and Elliot Scullion (keyboards, guitars and vocals) are both British, bassist Saskia Clapton is from Sydney and drummer Arthur Dherbermont from Paris. The three songs that compromise their debut EP ‘It is Not Fun, It’s Not a Hat’ were among seven that they recorded last year in a whirlwind session in Jackson’s old flat in Liverpool. The group have since relocated to Amsterdam after Clapton’s visa situation in the UK became tenuous.

On first impressions there seems to be a certain amount of flippancy at work from the Great Emu War Casualties, who take their name from a failed ’wildlife management military operation’ in Western Australia in 1932 to curb the number of emus running amok there. The EP takes its title from a notice Clapton saw on a Japanese hat stand when touring in Tokyo with a previous band, and the names of its three songs are off-kilter and playful.

Lyrically the Great Emu War Casualties, however, have a bruised melancholy. On both ‘Stir Fry and Sadness’ and ‘There is a God and His Name is Mark Sugar-Mountain’ Jackson captures well the claustrophobia of a disintegrating relationship. “It’s wearing my ears out to prove you wrong,” he sings on ‘Stir Fry and Sadness’. “And I would as soon spend my holiday sanding down my path rather than being serenaded all day long with condescending stories from your youth.” ‘‘There is a God…’ is even more spiky still with the kiss-off lines of “She said, ‘It is nice is to be here’/He said, ‘For you maybe.’” The final track ‘The Rip Off’ meanwhile chronicles the dilemma of someone who has found himself out of the step with the rest of the 21st Century. “You blame it on the news, the internet and old friends,” Jackson reflects, before assuming the role of his character as he sings with real pathos over and over again in the chorus line, “What’s the matter with me?”

Musically also they have real muscle. Songs begin delicately and then glide upwards in a beautiful mass of shimmering guitars and pulsating keyboards. There is a wonderful moment on ‘Stir Fry and Sadness’ when the guitars surge to a sudden squalling height, before tumbling downwards in the song’s final moments.

With two more EPS promised soon and eventually an album which they are shortly to begin crowdfunding for, ‘It is Not Fun, It’s Not a Hat’ is an excellent introduction to a group who perfectly combine the sublime with the ridiculous.

Track Listing:

01) There is a God and His Name is Mark Sugar-Mountain

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Melancholic and unusual debut EP from internationally-focused group the Great Emu War Casualties

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It is Not Fun, It's Not a Hat - CDS
Melancholic and unusual debut EP from internationally-focused group the Great Emu War Casualties

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