HTRK

Psychic 9-5 Club (Ghostly International)
12/20

Last time we listened to Melbourne group HTRK it was on 2011 album Work (Work, Work), and they left us with the unnerving prospect that life is “only business baby, there’s nothing personal about it”. The sound on Psychic 9-5 Club is still sultry, impersonal and distant, but within more prominent vocals and instrumentation that occasionally borders on tropical there are glimmers of optimism.

A HTRK album without the deceased, founding member Sean Stewart has a certain structure: Jonnine Standish’s breathy vocals, and Nigel Yang’s down-tempo, electronic soundscapes. And while Feels Like Love and The Body You Deserve are particular highlights, few individual tracks manage to make a strong impression due to the album’s consistently restrained formula. It’s surprising that a band who’re so self-conscious would release an album that feels like a collection of ideas or sketches rather than finished material. Maybe the sentiment of insecurity and instability created by something unfinished, unstructured or incomplete fuels this album. But given how far HTRK have come in the past few years, we’d hoped that they’d take this opportunity to push a little further.

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Words: Gareth Thomas