Brisbane rockers Dune Rats have spent such a huge amount of the past couple of years on the road that some may have doubted that they’ve had any time to write another record, yet here they are with The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit. Three years after the release of their self-titled debut record, the release of this new album is timed to perfection – with the hype around these notorious partiers peaking in the last year with singles ‘Bullshit’ and ‘Scott Green’. Now their status as one of the most loved rock outfits in the country has been cemented.
Featuring nine ripper new tracks, The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from Dune Rats at this point in their career as a band – that being plenty of hard-hitting, happy rock vibes, as well as more of their honest and largely Australia-relevant lyrical content. The second track ‘6 Pack’ tells the experience of so many young Australians, as the protagonist escapes the realities of being underage with fighting parents via a six pack of beers purchased by his brother (what a guy). In the latter half of the song our protagonist is now old enough to buy his own beer but longs for his youth. Still, he once again finds solace in that same six pack.
Dune Rats most recent radio single ‘Scott Green’ is also extremely pertinent, with its lyrical content making casual references to drug-use throughout (built around the search for a man who shares his name with a simple request for weed). It may just sound like some light-hearted banter, and on a basic level that’s what Dune Rats have done with this track, but on another level they’re keeping the discussion about the problematic illegality of so many drugs in the public conscious – all accompanied by a melody you won’t be able to get out of your head for days.
There are a bunch of other tracks like ‘Braindead’ that address the struggles of being a young adult, but when it comes to relatable lyrics it’s impossible to go past ‘Bullshit’. It’s anthemic refrain, “Everything you say is bullshit, and everything you do is so shit” is perfect in its simplicity. Accompanied by driving guitars and drums, the instrumentation on this track and so many others on the record serve purely and faultlessly to bring attention to what Dune Rats are saying in their lyrics.
It would be easy to dismiss the musicality of Dune Rats, citing the lack of melodic and rhythmic complexity, and even the often off-pitch, almost shouting style of singing that BC Michaels and Danny Beusa employ over the course of the record. In doing so, however, you’d be missing the key aspects in their music that make Dune Rats so accessible, catchy, and more than anything; just fun to listen to. Many tracks on this record, ‘Buzz-Kill’ for instance, employ call and response sections of the vocal where the call is sung by once voice and then we hear a crowd shouting back, setting it up perfectly to be sung along to live.
The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit is definitely a record that Dune Rats needed to make to sustain their heavy touring habit, but it’s also a collection of songs that are just so much fun to listen to and it’s clear that the boys had a great time writing and recording them. With accessible and catchy rock melodies underpinning the banterous nature of their always-relatable lyrics, Dune Rats are really starting to carve out a niche in rock music that few others are exploring in quite so much depth.
–
‘The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit’ is out today. Grab a copy here. Dune Rates kick off their natinal tour this March.
