Working quickly on the heels of their 2022 garage rock concept album Rapscallion, Australian rock outfit the Murlocs will return with another new project, Calm Ya Farm, on May 19 via ATO Records. Rarely content to work in one genre, the group dabbles here in the country rock stylings of the Byrds in tandem with tinges of ’70s British pub rockers such as Nick Lowe.
First single “Initiative” is out today (March 22) and finds frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith mulling whether to start taking responsibility for his life “instead of always living in the now and killing all your brain cells along the way. Not everyone wants the big family and the big house with the white picket fence. Everything happens for a reason and sometimes you need to take things more seriously and make a few power moves in life to find out what comes next in the crystal ball.”
One of the new album tracks, the deeply grooving “Russian Roulette,” was featured prominently on the Murlocs’ fall North American tour. “With this record we tried to steer away from all the distortion and dirt and grit, or at least let the grit come off a bit more clean-sounding,” says Kenny-Smith, who is joined in the Murlocs by his fellow King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard bandmate Cook Craig, as well as guitarist Callum Shortal, drummer Matt Blach, and keyboardist Tim Karmouche.
The Murlocs will take advantage of a rare period this spring when King Gizzard won’t be on tour to play a handful of shows in Australia, beginning April 22 in Melbourne. The group will also perform at the U.K.’s End of the Road festival in late September and the Misty Fields festival in the Netherlands shortly thereafter.
As previously reported, Kenny-Smith and Cook will simultaneously have their hands very full with King Gizzard, which is expected to release new music this year and will embark on a unique residency tour of four U.S. cities in June. The group will also play its largest North American headlining show to date on June 21 at the 17,000-capacity Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Here is the track list for Calm Ya Farm:
“Initiative”
“Common Sense Civilian”
“Russian Roulette”
“Superstitious Insights”
“Centennial Perspective”
“Queen Pinky”
“Undone And Unashamed”
“Captain Cotton Mouth”
“Catfish”
“Smithereens”
“Forbidden Toad”
“Aletophyte”
