Music / Features
Track by Track:
Imperial Broads - Counterpart
Imperial Broads - Counterpart
Following its release last month through Broken Stone Records, we caught up with Sydney garage-pop gang Imperial Broads to get the lowdown on the stories that make up their thrillingly raucous new album Counterpart.
It’s been nearly five years on from the release of Who Are We Turning Into?, Imperial Broads’ debut release which saw the trio burst onto Sydney’s underground scene, popping up on a heap of impressive lineups and scoring airplay around the country. On paper, it seems like a long time between drinks, but with the release of Counterpart a few weeks back, it’s clear this time hasn’t been spent poorly - with a creation process the band describe as “slow cooked”, Counterpart sees Imperial Broads’ harnessing all the spirit and energy of their debut album, with a new-found confidence to experiment at the edges of their sound and an extra dose of glorious grit.
From the get-go, Counterpart is an exhilarating venture through the depths of clever garage-rock. Up first, ‘I Got A Feeling’ is instantly charming with its racing groove and playful hooks, and ‘Unromantic’ and ‘Sociopath’ expand on this with shimmering surf-rock leads, shapeshifting vocal deliveries and plenty of off-kilter left turns.
By the time we’re in the thick of the album however, Imperial Broads’ unwillingness to be pigeon-holed is more overt - ‘Control’ finds the group leaning into turbulent post-punk with its stark melodic interplay and driving pulse, and ‘Another Planet’ throws listeners for a loop as it darts between mesmerising dream-pop and gooey-eyed doo-wop. But before we get too comfortable with the woozy atmospheres, we’re dunked back in the thick of things with the noisey garage-punk blitz ‘We Need This’ and the stomping ‘Same Old’.
With three individual songwriters taking lead responsibilities on a third of the album each, Counterpart’s greatest strength might be its ability to blur the group’s unique tendencies together. But the cohesive blend that Imperial Broads’ craft doesn’t only come across as effortless; the result is almost always thrilling as they swerve illusively between ethereal and volatile, leaving us to hold on for the ride as the band continue to dig into uncharted territory that never fails to feel joyous.
To help us get to know Counterpart a little better, Lauren, Eve and Pip kindly walked us through the album track by track.
From the get-go, Counterpart is an exhilarating venture through the depths of clever garage-rock. Up first, ‘I Got A Feeling’ is instantly charming with its racing groove and playful hooks, and ‘Unromantic’ and ‘Sociopath’ expand on this with shimmering surf-rock leads, shapeshifting vocal deliveries and plenty of off-kilter left turns.
By the time we’re in the thick of the album however, Imperial Broads’ unwillingness to be pigeon-holed is more overt - ‘Control’ finds the group leaning into turbulent post-punk with its stark melodic interplay and driving pulse, and ‘Another Planet’ throws listeners for a loop as it darts between mesmerising dream-pop and gooey-eyed doo-wop. But before we get too comfortable with the woozy atmospheres, we’re dunked back in the thick of things with the noisey garage-punk blitz ‘We Need This’ and the stomping ‘Same Old’.
With three individual songwriters taking lead responsibilities on a third of the album each, Counterpart’s greatest strength might be its ability to blur the group’s unique tendencies together. But the cohesive blend that Imperial Broads’ craft doesn’t only come across as effortless; the result is almost always thrilling as they swerve illusively between ethereal and volatile, leaving us to hold on for the ride as the band continue to dig into uncharted territory that never fails to feel joyous.
To help us get to know Counterpart a little better, Lauren, Eve and Pip kindly walked us through the album track by track.
I Got A Feeling
Lauren (bass/vocals): Some songs take a while to brew but this one seemed to crystallise in my hands over a matter of minutes. It’s a fiercely honest song with some big hard feelings flung out with as much danceable energy as possible. I love that it uses a group vocal call and response which has really become a feature of the Imperial Broads sound. We recorded the shouts and group chorus vocals in a kitchen which is typical for this record, where any free time and free space might become a recording session. We did it together around one microphone and it gave this song the final energy infusion it wanted.
Unromantic
Eve (guitar/vocals): A cheeky clear-eyed take on a love song - there’s plenty of gooey and heartbroken songs, but let’s be honest about the aspects of a long term partnership that are necessity and fantasies about something “other”. Or, at least, let’s present it that way and keep the good stuff private. A surf guitar break-down doesn’t hurt either. In workshopping this song together as a band, we cut the song into chunks and rearranged it like I imagine screenwriters do with scenes in a script. Everyone got it immediately as it felt typically Broadsy. Most of the lead line was written in the studio, recording, which is always a refreshing touch. Liam suggested the lead vocal be recorded in a cranked whisper to help add to the creep, and Loz and Pip brought spooky almost sarcastic backing vocals to add to the charm.
Lauren (bass/vocals): Some songs take a while to brew but this one seemed to crystallise in my hands over a matter of minutes. It’s a fiercely honest song with some big hard feelings flung out with as much danceable energy as possible. I love that it uses a group vocal call and response which has really become a feature of the Imperial Broads sound. We recorded the shouts and group chorus vocals in a kitchen which is typical for this record, where any free time and free space might become a recording session. We did it together around one microphone and it gave this song the final energy infusion it wanted.
Unromantic
Eve (guitar/vocals): A cheeky clear-eyed take on a love song - there’s plenty of gooey and heartbroken songs, but let’s be honest about the aspects of a long term partnership that are necessity and fantasies about something “other”. Or, at least, let’s present it that way and keep the good stuff private. A surf guitar break-down doesn’t hurt either. In workshopping this song together as a band, we cut the song into chunks and rearranged it like I imagine screenwriters do with scenes in a script. Everyone got it immediately as it felt typically Broadsy. Most of the lead line was written in the studio, recording, which is always a refreshing touch. Liam suggested the lead vocal be recorded in a cranked whisper to help add to the creep, and Loz and Pip brought spooky almost sarcastic backing vocals to add to the charm.
Socioplath
Pip (guitar/vocals); This song started its life as a rap written during a residency with Melbourne-based literary magazine the Lifted Brow many moons ago. I’d just come out of a shit year, co-directing a writers festival with some people who were very ambitious (and not very friendly). This song was how I got my revenge once the festival was over. I was listening to a bit of angry girl rap at the time (Azealia Banks, etc), but when spoken by a white girl from Sydney it just sounded ridiculous! So, I tried to take the piss out of myself, and turned it into a garage song instead. We’ve been performing ‘Socioplath’ live for a fair few years now, and a horrible realisation has progressively dawned on me: that the qualities I despise in other people are the qualities I most detest in myself. Isn’t it always the way! The enemy lies within!
This Last Time
Eve: This song is about the toxicity of interdependence, presenting itself lyrically in this song in the form of a relationship, but which more generally can be applied to trying to make change within a structure that is created in a way to prevent it - trying to find and create community in a capitalist society, trying to effect environmental change at an individual level, etc. It is a working through of some of these broader issues presented in the form of a weird love song (which is nothing new for me). Musically, the push and pull of this interdependence - does it serve me in some ways, do I need it, do I need to get out of it, will it make a real change if I do - is presented in the sweet verses with a melodic bass line from Loz, and dirty dirgy pre-chorus/chorus with a characteristically nasty guitar line from Pip in the chorus, courtesy of a custom made fuzz pedal. Nick does this skip in his drum beat in the final verse which always felt like a secret little gem for me when we played it live. Now you can go find it too! If we all keep telling ourselves this is the last time, it might eventually be that.
Control
Lauren: This song is about the light and dark of relationships - losing yourself as one turns poisonous or finding yourself in the intensity of new friendship. It’s one of the few songs I actually demoed because I had all these parts swirling in my head. We entered the studio with the aim of finding a disorienting guitar tone to set the atmosphere for this song against that militant tight drum track. I felt like we nailed it with Liam managing to get this wobbly tape sound that is quite unnerving and made for a tricky but satisfying guitar session. I was on a Patti Smith and Joy Division bender when I wrote this song and both artists definitely influenced aspects of the arrangement and melodies. I’d written a pretty off-kilter bassline and I never knew if it would actually work until we put it down in the studio. Pip and Eve really came to the party with their guitar parts for the nightclub breakdown in the middle and once I got the vocal take right this song came together for us.
Pip (guitar/vocals); This song started its life as a rap written during a residency with Melbourne-based literary magazine the Lifted Brow many moons ago. I’d just come out of a shit year, co-directing a writers festival with some people who were very ambitious (and not very friendly). This song was how I got my revenge once the festival was over. I was listening to a bit of angry girl rap at the time (Azealia Banks, etc), but when spoken by a white girl from Sydney it just sounded ridiculous! So, I tried to take the piss out of myself, and turned it into a garage song instead. We’ve been performing ‘Socioplath’ live for a fair few years now, and a horrible realisation has progressively dawned on me: that the qualities I despise in other people are the qualities I most detest in myself. Isn’t it always the way! The enemy lies within!
This Last Time
Eve: This song is about the toxicity of interdependence, presenting itself lyrically in this song in the form of a relationship, but which more generally can be applied to trying to make change within a structure that is created in a way to prevent it - trying to find and create community in a capitalist society, trying to effect environmental change at an individual level, etc. It is a working through of some of these broader issues presented in the form of a weird love song (which is nothing new for me). Musically, the push and pull of this interdependence - does it serve me in some ways, do I need it, do I need to get out of it, will it make a real change if I do - is presented in the sweet verses with a melodic bass line from Loz, and dirty dirgy pre-chorus/chorus with a characteristically nasty guitar line from Pip in the chorus, courtesy of a custom made fuzz pedal. Nick does this skip in his drum beat in the final verse which always felt like a secret little gem for me when we played it live. Now you can go find it too! If we all keep telling ourselves this is the last time, it might eventually be that.
Control
Lauren: This song is about the light and dark of relationships - losing yourself as one turns poisonous or finding yourself in the intensity of new friendship. It’s one of the few songs I actually demoed because I had all these parts swirling in my head. We entered the studio with the aim of finding a disorienting guitar tone to set the atmosphere for this song against that militant tight drum track. I felt like we nailed it with Liam managing to get this wobbly tape sound that is quite unnerving and made for a tricky but satisfying guitar session. I was on a Patti Smith and Joy Division bender when I wrote this song and both artists definitely influenced aspects of the arrangement and melodies. I’d written a pretty off-kilter bassline and I never knew if it would actually work until we put it down in the studio. Pip and Eve really came to the party with their guitar parts for the nightclub breakdown in the middle and once I got the vocal take right this song came together for us.
Another Planet
Pip: Eve introduced me to what I call ‘the triangle chord’ in her song ‘Ephemeral’, and I wanted to build a song around that chord, too. I was once in a girl group cover band, and I still love that genre, so I had The Shangri-Las and The Ronettes in mind when writing this song - but the sweetness slips and gives way to something darker/grittier. The lyrics are quite simple. I kept wondering if I should change them for that reason, but never found I could. On the surface, the song’s about whimsy, how it’s really an escape route to ‘Planet B’ (which could be one’s imagination, or even, more literally, the afterlife, if we’ve already decided to opt out of this life) when Planet A seems too hard. Planet B might not necessarily be an improvement, but yearning to go there might be enough.
Pip: Eve introduced me to what I call ‘the triangle chord’ in her song ‘Ephemeral’, and I wanted to build a song around that chord, too. I was once in a girl group cover band, and I still love that genre, so I had The Shangri-Las and The Ronettes in mind when writing this song - but the sweetness slips and gives way to something darker/grittier. The lyrics are quite simple. I kept wondering if I should change them for that reason, but never found I could. On the surface, the song’s about whimsy, how it’s really an escape route to ‘Planet B’ (which could be one’s imagination, or even, more literally, the afterlife, if we’ve already decided to opt out of this life) when Planet A seems too hard. Planet B might not necessarily be an improvement, but yearning to go there might be enough.
Another Town
Lauren: When I first brought this to the rehearsal room I was met with some very confused looks, “It does what now?”. I had to kind of sing out the drum part I imagined, sounding like a fool I’m sure (do pa dobudodopa…), and our drummer at the time had a huge smile and gave it a red hot go. It’s the first song I’ve written with a key change and I found that super exciting and really natural for the acid-trip, theme park ride, atmosphere of this song. Liam understood the vibe immediately and jumped in to play some filthy screaming noise guitars as the backdrop for the intertwined lead lines through the outro. The song is about some real people in my childhood and how they all fled the small mountain community we grew up in leaving us in a place full of ghosts.
We Need This
Eve: This song is about this band and what it means to come together away from our daily life and make some noise as escapism but also as reflection and expansion - it’s about us when we first started out, from not really knowing anything, to working out our own voice. It’s also about finding a safe space that allows for genuine expressions of sincerity in a world where form is sometimes more greatly valued over substance. It’s a snake charmer, but we’re not sure if we are the snakes or the charmers. I also wanted to write a song where we spelled out the band name "We’re the Penetrators, we don’t mess around"-style, and here is that song. Busy bass moments, Pip’s guitar solo at the end we dubbed the “goose” that Liam worked through via a kind of overloaded old school compressor hardware to eff it up good, and me and Nick rhythm-ing it out. Liam mic’d up the pic action on the rhythm guitar (I had heard John Schmersal had done this on his Vertical Scratchers record) so we could get both big amp guitar sounds and tappy percussive sounds from the pic action on the strings. As always, a true group effort.
Same Old
Eve: A dirgy stomper with some pretty harmonies - the Sisyphean nature of life and what we do to get through it. Seeing routines both as negative and positive - the external forces of oppression and depression, but also as a personal ways of creating relief from those forces. The influence for this song is something so incredibly world’s away from it, which is a song off my friend Ellen Carey’s first Fair Maiden record. Then it went via The Velvet Underground. Then somehow it sounds like neither. Liam suggested we put down the rhythm guitar using a big amp thru a small speaker cab for the ‘phat’ sound. I never had a lead part in my head for this track and Pip, as always, delivered something true to the dredge-y thumper yet making it, ya know, sing a bit.
Slow Down Rabbit
Pip: Lyrically, ‘Slow Down Rabbit’ is about my relationship with a fictionalised, composite person made from various people in my life who have big feelings and big expectations. It’s about the guilt of not being there for them as much as you know they need you to be. Ultimately, it’s about being a shit friend. The little flamenco sections are precursors to the middle section, when pent up exhaustion & frustration = the shit hitting the fan. I have a tendency to want to try my songs a million different ways in the rehearsal room until an arrangement ‘clicks’, but Nick pulled the weird false starts out of his bag at the first rehearsal and we were like - yep! Great! Do that! Eve nailed the feeling of the disgruntled flamenco guitar bits straight away. It’s an odd song, but there to stay.
Lovers
Lauren: One day, after a shift at the zoo, I missed a ferry and started walking the leafy streets to find a bus. With glimpses of the city peeking between the oversized houses I was taken back to when I fled the blue mountains to move straight into the belly of the beast, the heart of nightlife and mayhem that used to be Kings Cross (before the cultural shift that effectively shut it down). Everyone left the mountains for the city and it felt mythical. This song came to me on that walk as I thought about my friends drawn to the city and the folly of thinking you’ll be someone else, someone better, when you get there. Sonically, I just know I wanted it to be a danceable track and I don’t recall why I thought those spat out vocals in the pre-chorus would work - somehow it does?! As we went into the studio I had been listening to ‘Back To The Wall’ by Divinyls and I think that seemed like a good sonic reference.
Green Balloon
Pip: I wrote this song after going on a Marine Girls bender. I was living on my own in a tiny flat in Clovelly, swimming in Gordon’s Bay whenever the weather was fine. I particularly loved the area in early winter - you’d get these strange, out of place summer days interrupting the onset of winter - both a magical and lonely time. ‘Green Balloon’ took a long time to come together in the rehearsal room. No version of it ever felt quite right. We tried to model it off a Shangri-Las song, we sped it up, slowed it down. When it came time to put down the drums, we still hadn’t fully committed to a treatment. I had to leave the session very quickly, and Liam stepped in with his producer’s hat on and said: “Right, we’re going to record it like the Jesus and Mary Chain!” When I found out, I was a little thrown for six! But now I like the thumping heart of the kick drum, and the space in the arrangement. Can’t imagine it any other way.
Lauren: When I first brought this to the rehearsal room I was met with some very confused looks, “It does what now?”. I had to kind of sing out the drum part I imagined, sounding like a fool I’m sure (do pa dobudodopa…), and our drummer at the time had a huge smile and gave it a red hot go. It’s the first song I’ve written with a key change and I found that super exciting and really natural for the acid-trip, theme park ride, atmosphere of this song. Liam understood the vibe immediately and jumped in to play some filthy screaming noise guitars as the backdrop for the intertwined lead lines through the outro. The song is about some real people in my childhood and how they all fled the small mountain community we grew up in leaving us in a place full of ghosts.
We Need This
Eve: This song is about this band and what it means to come together away from our daily life and make some noise as escapism but also as reflection and expansion - it’s about us when we first started out, from not really knowing anything, to working out our own voice. It’s also about finding a safe space that allows for genuine expressions of sincerity in a world where form is sometimes more greatly valued over substance. It’s a snake charmer, but we’re not sure if we are the snakes or the charmers. I also wanted to write a song where we spelled out the band name "We’re the Penetrators, we don’t mess around"-style, and here is that song. Busy bass moments, Pip’s guitar solo at the end we dubbed the “goose” that Liam worked through via a kind of overloaded old school compressor hardware to eff it up good, and me and Nick rhythm-ing it out. Liam mic’d up the pic action on the rhythm guitar (I had heard John Schmersal had done this on his Vertical Scratchers record) so we could get both big amp guitar sounds and tappy percussive sounds from the pic action on the strings. As always, a true group effort.
Same Old
Eve: A dirgy stomper with some pretty harmonies - the Sisyphean nature of life and what we do to get through it. Seeing routines both as negative and positive - the external forces of oppression and depression, but also as a personal ways of creating relief from those forces. The influence for this song is something so incredibly world’s away from it, which is a song off my friend Ellen Carey’s first Fair Maiden record. Then it went via The Velvet Underground. Then somehow it sounds like neither. Liam suggested we put down the rhythm guitar using a big amp thru a small speaker cab for the ‘phat’ sound. I never had a lead part in my head for this track and Pip, as always, delivered something true to the dredge-y thumper yet making it, ya know, sing a bit.
Slow Down Rabbit
Pip: Lyrically, ‘Slow Down Rabbit’ is about my relationship with a fictionalised, composite person made from various people in my life who have big feelings and big expectations. It’s about the guilt of not being there for them as much as you know they need you to be. Ultimately, it’s about being a shit friend. The little flamenco sections are precursors to the middle section, when pent up exhaustion & frustration = the shit hitting the fan. I have a tendency to want to try my songs a million different ways in the rehearsal room until an arrangement ‘clicks’, but Nick pulled the weird false starts out of his bag at the first rehearsal and we were like - yep! Great! Do that! Eve nailed the feeling of the disgruntled flamenco guitar bits straight away. It’s an odd song, but there to stay.
Lovers
Lauren: One day, after a shift at the zoo, I missed a ferry and started walking the leafy streets to find a bus. With glimpses of the city peeking between the oversized houses I was taken back to when I fled the blue mountains to move straight into the belly of the beast, the heart of nightlife and mayhem that used to be Kings Cross (before the cultural shift that effectively shut it down). Everyone left the mountains for the city and it felt mythical. This song came to me on that walk as I thought about my friends drawn to the city and the folly of thinking you’ll be someone else, someone better, when you get there. Sonically, I just know I wanted it to be a danceable track and I don’t recall why I thought those spat out vocals in the pre-chorus would work - somehow it does?! As we went into the studio I had been listening to ‘Back To The Wall’ by Divinyls and I think that seemed like a good sonic reference.
Green Balloon
Pip: I wrote this song after going on a Marine Girls bender. I was living on my own in a tiny flat in Clovelly, swimming in Gordon’s Bay whenever the weather was fine. I particularly loved the area in early winter - you’d get these strange, out of place summer days interrupting the onset of winter - both a magical and lonely time. ‘Green Balloon’ took a long time to come together in the rehearsal room. No version of it ever felt quite right. We tried to model it off a Shangri-Las song, we sped it up, slowed it down. When it came time to put down the drums, we still hadn’t fully committed to a treatment. I had to leave the session very quickly, and Liam stepped in with his producer’s hat on and said: “Right, we’re going to record it like the Jesus and Mary Chain!” When I found out, I was a little thrown for six! But now I like the thumping heart of the kick drum, and the space in the arrangement. Can’t imagine it any other way.
Counterpart is out now through Broken Stone Records - head to imperialbroads.bandcamp.com to grab the album on limited vinyl.
