The Australian indie scene still holds a few surprises. For just short of a decade, star acts such as Tame Impala, Courtney Barnett or King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have carried their different flavours of grunge/psychedelic/stoner/alt-rock to the forefront of the biggest festivals in the world. Which brings us to the newest hopeful in this scene: Angie McMahon. She might have arrived on the coattails of these success-stories, but it would be a mistake to brand her a copycat in any way. After winning a Telstra competition in 2013, she was the supporting act for Bon Jovi. But rather than go all-in for a chance at short-term success, off the back of that opportunity, the Melbourne-based singer decided to focus on her music and her artistic identity. 4 years would pass before the release of her first single, Slow Mover in 2017, which would be certified Gold by the ARIA. After putting out 4 additional singles between 2018 and 2019, her fanbase grew rapidly in Australia as well as abroad. During this time, she also toured with The Shins, Mumford & Sons, Pixies and even Alanis Morissette, as a supporting act or on equal footing. The anticipation for her first album – Salt- was high.
When you compare her 2013 performance for the Telstra Road to Discovery competition to her first full-length release, it’s clear her patience has payed off. Out went the country-folk overtones which had characterized her early fame. Angie McMahon reworked her own sound from top to bottom, focusing on gritty garage-ish guitars and simple, effective production. Play The Game, the opening track, is intimate, raw and sensitive. Torn between her need for affection and her loner tendencies, she croons “About the situation, I can feel my teeth trying to break the ice”. The introspective confession leads to Soon, where she sets the dynamic power in her voice free, going from guttural to weightless in the same second. Her guitar work is also quite varied, as can be heard on the next track, Keeping Time : the break where she quietens down into the background offers a satisfying contrast to the following anthemic chorus. McMahon’s hypersensibility doesn’t mean she is unable to speak in the second degree. In Pasta Song, she states in a very Courtney Barnett-ish way: “My bedroom is a disaster / My dog has got kidney failure (failure) / I've been sitting at the bar too much / Kissing people in my head”. On I am A Woman, she tackles a tougher subject: femininity and its surrounding stereotypes. It’s the perfect excuse for her to let go of the steering wheel and let her overwhelming emotions take control of the course of the song, expressing her frustration and anger through a long crescendo. In 2019, the trend is to rather be cold, calculated and uninvolved. It’s relatively rare for artists to display such openness and candor without falling into recycled tropes. Salt is a deeply personal and bruising debut album – in short, be sure it’ll leave a mark. © Alexis Renaudat/Qobuz