There’s a delicious bitterness to the lyrics of Snakes & Foxes, the new single and opening salvo from Ballarat rock band Epicure’s fifth album, Postcards From A Ghost. Lead singer Juan Alban might be the quiet, introspective-type in person, but his pen was dripping venom when he wrote these lines. Heartbreak and betrayal will do that to a guy.
“I think it’s our angriest records,” asserts Juan. “Lyrically, anyway I think it’s the most sinister and darkest thing we’ve done. But it’s also our best sounding album”.
He’s not wrong. From the opening sinewy chords of Snakes and Foxes it’s clear Epicure have stepped things up a notch. It’s a more muscular, solid and unabashed guitar heavy sound courtesy of new guitarist Mick Hubbard (ex-Jen Cloher’s Endless Sea); the leadman’s slow-hand burn and bluesy flair, now a lynchpin in Epicure’s sound. Dom Santamaria’s driving drums and Tim Bignell’s sonorous bass tones provide the rhythmic spine to the song, just as Juan’s bitter-sweet melodies and keyboardist Heath McCurdy’s tinkling ivories and passionate Hammond solo lifts the tune into the final glorious refrain.
Snakes and Foxes was one of the last songs the band wrote before commencing recording, and even Juan wonders at the natural immediacy of the hook, as he plucked it literally from the air one night. “The melody just kind of came to me,” he says. “The kind of melody where I thought ‘ahh shit, I must have stolen it from somewhere. It’s just one of those songs. We’ve had a lot of people say it doesn’t sound like Epicure”.
Produced and mixed by Lindsay Gravina (Shihad/MagicDirt) the new Epicure see-saw and saunter between the dual palettes of alternative rock and alt-country. All up it’s a rootsier, rockier affair, steeped in rich warm bluesy guitar tones, the producer capturing both that dichotomy and that dynamic perfectly. Immaculately crafted, sonically gorgeous and imbued with all Epicure’s trademark beautiful melancholy, Postcards From A Ghost see the band write the best songs of their career, and Snakes and Foxes is but one of them.
Embarking on a national tour to showcase the new material to fans we’re lucky that they are heading our way:
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This is one of the best bands Australia has produced and so terribly underated. They are the most humble and talented musicians that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. and see perform. Just love the new album..
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