The Bennies - Rainbows In Space
The Bennies are weird, wacky, sometimes wonderful, sometimes not.
Melbourne's The Bennies are an eclectic collective of musicians who seem to have cut their teeth on everything from party rock anthems, metal and ska to reggae and pop. The group's debut album, Rainbows In Space, is a rather apt description for this 14-track LSD trip down the road of every15-year-old kid's schizophrenic music collection.
You get party-themed rock (the opening “Party Smashers”), ska-tinged anthemic punk (the pretty great “Anywhere You Want To Go”), stoner reggae rock (“Let's Get Stoned”) and rock steady (“Hold On”, which is another good entry). It's an easy indication that Rainbows in Space is really a smorgasbord of genres that are glued together by the band's frenetic energy. Much of the album sounds like it was written under a heavy haze of drugs and alcohol, and while some of the songs are a bizarre mixture of tripping something fantastic with an ultra laid back attitude, some songs seem to be lacking in solid direction.
The album's biggest problem is that the band have an affinity for so many different genres of music that they're having a hard time picking one (or even two) to give the album a singular aesthetic. The band completely lose their marbles in “Frankston Girls”, a candidate for one of least productive songs you'll hear all year. It's part metal, part ska, part rock, all kinds of terrible. It's real shame because they follow it up with the more traditional third-wave ska sounding “Westgate Wednesday” which is a terrific tune, akin to what Against All Authority, Voodoo Glow Skulls and Assorted Jellybeans did during their time.
It's early days for The Bennies as they've got a lot of positive elements going for them. They know how to party, but lack direction when it comes to writing a solid album from start to finish. Some of their terrific songs are weighed down heavily by their awful ones. An album full of “Westgate Wednesdays” and “Anywhere You Want To Gos” would have made Rainbows In Space worthy of repeated listens. Unfortunately, for now, your best bet is to pick and choose a few tracks until they're able to do the good more often than the bad.
(Poison City Records)