HTRK - Rhinestones

Guitars, drum machine and voice: these are the bare-bones elements of the language of HTRK (short for “Hate Rock”), the Australian duo (formerly a trio) that emerged in the mid-2000s from the Melbourne scene. “Rhinestones”, their fifth album, picks up where “Venus In Leo” (Ghostly, 2019) left off, following a soundtrack written for a documentary on Scientology, “Over The Rainbow” (Jeff Peixoto, 2019). The mood is the same as the previous album, where the band’s sound had already veered towards an intimate dream-pop frozen into a minimal wave in the vein of Durutti Column (“Fast Friend”, “Real Headfuck”), with increasingly pronounced folk shadings (“Valentina”, “Straight To Hell”).

Still intriguing, with a secretive charm that comes across best live – their 2019 Berlin Atonal show was gripping and considerably noisier – HTRK lean further into the acoustic, moving further away from the sonic density of dream-pop and closer to the sparseness of chamber-pop in the style of L'Altra (“Sunlight Like Bee Stings”) or the slowcore of early Low (“Siren Song”). The standout singles are the delightful “Kiss Kiss And Rhinestones”, which opens the record and towers over the rest of it, and “Reverse Déjà Vu”.

Closing things out is the electronic “Gilbert And George”, all beats, light strums multiplying over one another, and words fading into the distance. The impression is that the formula has become more settled, but also more normalized and less vibrant, as if the emotions and fears of “Venus In Leo” had crystallized into some other place that leaves us puzzled.

I recognise this feeling, so untrue

You’re acting like a reverse déjà vu

And how can I bury you

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23/11/2021