As Flaming Wrekage’s brutal fourth album tickles your earholes, you know this is something special. …
Renewing their love of music in a post-pandemic world, Sydney’s Crash & The Crapenters have barrelled into 2024 with a whole new lease on their creative life.
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Recently unleashing a brand new album, Of A Love Renewed, the third full-length for the group, Crash & The Crapenters married modern themes with a classic punk rock spirit; and, as frontman Chris Carpenter recently shared with HysteriaMag.com, the ultimate road to the new album was paved in the midst of the dreaded “uncertain times”.
“The genesis for this record really began with the release of our last record, the self-titled we put on April 20, 2020!” says Carpenter. “Yep, smack bang in the middle of Sydney’s first lockdown. We had shows lined up in Melbourne, South Coast, Wollongong, Sydney, Central Coast, Newy and the Gold Coast – and that all went pffft in the blink of a pandemic! It got us thinking about best laid plans and all, dumb luck and the loss of liberty and resultant trauma on an unprecedented global scale, which we explored on our Great Singles Bonanza of 2021. And it’s something which we’ve continued to explore thematically on the new record!”
Scaling a horde of sonic influences once again on their latest release, the Crapenters certainly aren’t shy when it comes to delving beyond typical expectations of a punk or rock’n’roll band.
“We pride ourselves on being fearless when it comes to tackling a bunch of different styles,” says Carpenter, “and for me personally, that stems from my love of The Clash and The Jam/ Paul Weller and David Bowie, artists whose catalogue is made more interesting due to its progression and variety; music that as well as being hard hitting, has a bit of swing and strut to it!”
“It’s also an indication of how varied the guys in the group are in our own music tastes. I’m more into my punk and reggae and funk, a couple of the guys are well into metal and we share a love of bands like Midnight Oil and Rose Tattoo and The Angels and such, which is a generational thing from music that was so prominent to us growing up.”
With real-world issues permeating the new full-length, including the stirring Guilty As Sin detailing controversies surrounding the Catholic Church as well as a song that delves into the tragic Matilda Rosewarne bullying case, the ultimate Crash & The Crapenters experience take home message is one that powerfully tackles “things that are universal and important.”
My main hope is that the listener will hear what we have to say, and find some type of solidarity and inspiration in it.
[ Chris Carpenter, Crash & The Crapenters ]
“I think a lot about content of inspiration,” says Carpenter, “and my main hope is that the listener will hear what we have to say, and find some type of solidarity and inspiration in it.
Whether it be righteous indignation and contempt for people who prey on children, the lowest of the low…or empathy for a child whose young life was tragically cut way too short and her family who honour her. Or even if it people find some solidarity in the fact that we as a group, and as a society, and as a humanity, are finding ourselves scared and confused and angry about the world we live in, with more questions than answers as we grow, and we are having to unlearn a lot of our beliefs, for universal benefit.”
While some songs may not have ultimately made their way onto Of A Love Renewed this time round, there is plenty of new impending Crapenter material in the near future to come, including some significantly personal songs for Carpenter currently lying in wait to set the tone for the next phase of the band. And while it may not be long to wait until fans can glimpse more from the band, the Crapenters have also firmly hinted at what’s to come via the album’s two closing tracks, The Grieving Song and The World Is Broken.
“The World Is Broken in particular, ends with the lines: $30 billion spend on nuclear weapons / While mental health gets small change, has got us all on the brink / Yet still ignorance reins…WE FALL!” says Carpenter. “To me it’s like a cliffhanger ending, and the “to be continued” is where we’ll go next!”
Boasting fresh material for both the band and their fans to sink their teeth into, including Carpenter’s current fave Chains which was penned by fellow Crapenter Dave Lewis, Of A Love Renewed was also spurred along by the returning work of Carpenter’s big brother Michael Carpenter, with the longtime collaborator and band big brother producing, mixing and mastering the album; and on that topic, there’s some exciting things to come surrounding a new Carpenter to add to the Crapenter’s lineup.
“Family is family and there’s a comfort that comes with working with someone who has known me since birth,” says Carpenter of working alongside his brother. “I have so much respect for him as a musician; and as a producer and as a human being, he is absolutely priceless. Mick brings the same energy and support and care to the band musically as he does to me personally as a brother and a confidante. He actually played drums on eight of the tracks on the album, rhythm guitar on a couple, and we’re about to announce him as a fully fledged member of the band, who’ll be drumming on everything we record in the immediate future.”
Set to launch their new album live on stage this year, fans can expect to witness a large amount of the new Crapenters material in person when the band hit the road to celebrate Of A Love Renewed. And with material also in motion simultaneously for album #4 to follow on from their latest release, it’s going to be a busy couple of months in Crapenters HQ indeed.
“We’re actually looking at this as a fresh start for the band,” says Carpenter of the band’s upcoming gigs, “and we’ll be leaning heavily into showcasing stuff off the new record at our shows. The setlist we’re about to start jamming actually has like eight songs off Of A Love Renewed and only three or four from the back catalogue. This is where we’re at in 2024 and we’re intent on looking and moving forward and bringing our audience, who are as important as we are when it comes to playing shows, with us.”
“We’ve actually also got a four track EP that’ll be out mid year, preceded by a couple of singles. The Species Du Faeces EP, the title of which is inspired by Midnight Oil’s Species Deceases is the “to be continued” I was talking about earlier, sort of a companion piece to Of A Love Renewed. And the narrative around it is: if you want to change the world, start by changing yourself. Then album number four, tentatively titled either Write Or Flight or Air Of Menace will hopefully be out late this year or early next!”
“We just want to keep expressing ourselves creatively and keep building on the musical foundation we’ve laid, putting music out and getting into hot, loud, sweaty rooms with each other and with our friends in bands and with audiences and sharing that experience, hopefully making a somewhat positive contribution to people’s lives in that way. And fuck it, if world domination were to come our way, we’re certainly not afraid!”
Of A Love Renewed is out now via Big Radio Records.
