- Naked come squirming into their early twenties clutching at their teenage angst with the nostalgic force that tempts all Australian twenty-somethings to hate their job and half attempt to google the supplier of those miniature calzones they remember buying from the tuckshop in high school. They were called ‘Pizza Roundas’, good luck kids. Visually dripping with Brisbane label Tenth Court’s scribbly K Records-esque style, their first album Pink Quartz is hopelessly filled with microwaved sarcasm and lo-fi emotion. Tongues half-committed to their cheeks, the first track Massive Cock seems to simultaneously boast and lament the possession of an oversized member to a Massive Attack groove. “They wanted some money / And I didn’t have any money / So I punched them and / Took someone else’s pizza”, these lyrics are belted out sardonically in the lead singer’s unnerving Australian sing-song punk style and describe a brutal act of indifference that further alienates their central male character from the adolescent concept of ‘everyone else’ in the tracks Splinters Of The World Unite’ and Tele-visions. It seems that the enemies of Naked are conservative social elements like the cops, Domino’s Pizza, the Neighbourhood Watch and ‘White People Dreaming of Christmas’: the Australian dream of a house, two kids, two cars and a backyard crushed under the weight of expectations and perceived privilege. It becomes difficult to even notice the stellar job of their bass and guitarist in recreating the subtle lo-fi feel of bands like Slint and Unwound in most of their tracks. The prog-doom metal breakdown of Paul Walker Overture is a definite album highlight. The first name in Australian-tinged punk rock sing-a-long that comes to mind after listening to Pink Quartz a few times is Melbourne’s The Smith Street Band, although Naked aren’t at all interested in bringing together their peers in punch drunk camaraderie.

Naked cut a tableau of detached early twenties depression; abortion, cops, Queensland, alcoholism, violence, pizza, not to mention pick of the litter track Think About Death, which speaks for itself. That’s not to say that Pink Quartz is not highly danceable or appealing, there are certainly elements of both in between the emotional trauma and trace levels of feedback.  This album is for fans of the recent welfare generation of Australian indie rockers, and anyone who can remember the slacker days of American 90’s alternative wavers.

- Matt Hall.