Bluebottle Kiss

It seems that every musician claims their new album is their best ever. I've heard it time and time again and so often it's just bollocks. Now, I'm not going to be as bold as dB Magazine's own Steve Williams, whose review insinuated that Bluebottle Kiss' new album 'Doubt Seeds' was their best ever, but it certainly is a quality development in their impressive back catalogue. The more I listen to this 20-track double album behemoth, the more the songs leap out at me and make me wonder if Bluebottle Kiss have reached a new musical pinnacle.

Ben Grounds (guitar/vocals) explains, "If you'd asked me six months ago what I thought was our best album, I would have said 'Come Across', but I really think that this album is now our best. It takes all the influences of our past and uses them in a 'Bluebottle kind of way."

When asked how the new songs compare to some of their classics he muses, "It's hard to be objective about stuff I've played on, rather than the songs I loved when I was just a fan. But for instance, Dream Audit is one song that I really love because the guitars just get louder and louder and crazier and crazier. Also Sheffield Brides is the other new song which I feel is heavily goosebump-inducing."

In the past it was often hard to pinpoint Bluebottle Kiss' influences, but 'Doubt Seeds' is more overt in the fact that it draws inspiration from some of the greats like The Pixies, Nick Cave and Sonic Youth.

"Hopefully with this album when people listen they'll have an idea of where the songs are coming from. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to understand why the songs sound like they do and not just that we love making squalling feedback. We want it to have a bit of a rock history behind the whole thing.

"I guess we were deliberately being very ambitious and were pushing the envelope with what we could do. The last couple of albums were just standard albums, so we wanted to do something a bit different and this double album definitely is. We still wanted to keep our integrity and not go out there and make some post-rock album, but we just wanted to represent Bluebottle Kiss in the best way we can. We've always had really diverse influences, no-one more so than Jamie [Hutchings], our main songwriter, but I guess such a diverse double album is a reflection of the music we like."

Another feature of 'Doubt Seeds' separating it from past releases is the use of female vocals and choirs. They even managed to convince recent Australian music scene darling, Sarah Blasko, to sing on their album.

Grounds explains how they pulled off their coup. "Jamie produced Peabody's last couple of albums and he had gotten Sarah [Blasko] to come in and do a couple of tracks on Peabody's album, so he kind of knew her and knew that she was a great singer and was really good in the studio. She could come in and just listen to something once and then sing it perfectly, so he just called her up and got her in."

Not only is 'Doubt Seeds' a double album, but it is packaged in one of those old-school, clunky CD cases that are about an inch thick.

Grounds clarifies the rationale behind their presentation.

"We thought the packaging should reflect the momentousness of the release so it could feel a bit more special, plus just practically as well, because we wanted to include liner notes and lyrics. That was the aim, rather than for it to be wanky. Especially in the digital age, or maybe it's just old-school people like me, but it's good to be able to have something substantial in your hands with artwork so it can feel like a special thing."

As for the strikingly appropriate cover art, Grounds sounds pleased to explain, "The art on it is done by a guy called Chad Carey and it's kind of incidental. We were on the coast of NSW in this little town and we stumbled across his artwork. The whole band just loved his gear. We thought that if you were to put 'Bluebottle's music to paint, that this is what it would look like."

Scott Berry

Bluebottle Kiss play at Jive on Sat 19 August. 'Doubt Seeds' is out now through Shiny Records.