SINGLE REVIEW: THE VOLCANICS – Why’d Ya Do That?

Shane | 24 April 2022 | Reply

SINGLE REVIEW: THE VOLCANICS – Why’d Ya Do That?
Independent
April 2022
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
95%

Let’s not mince words: the sound of a top-notch rock n’ roll band taking flight into the stratosphere and doing what they do is a beautiful, transcendent thing, and there are few who do it as well as The Volcanics.

Hailing from Perth, Western Australia in the footsteps of The Victims and The Scientists, they may be hampered by the tyranny of distance from home to the rest of the world, but their spiritual hearts share a home in Detroit, in the rubble and debris of post-Stooges and MC5 and Amboy Dukes Motor City.

This single is a tribute to a great friend of the band and of the Perth music scene – Paul McCarthy. He who wrote the songs for The Boys at the start of the ‘80s, co-led The Jackals, steered The Wishers, Circus and a myriad more acts as well as an impressive solo career. He may never have found the fame and fortune that his unique and wondrous songwriting gifts deserved, but he touched many, many musos and fans, and left a wealth of songs after his passing about eighteen months ago.

McCarthy and The Volcanics played countless shows together and he was a great friend to the band – perhaps even a mentor as well. Their take on Why’d Ya Do That? is exactly as it should be: feisty, raucous, tighter than Jim Morrison’s leather pants, and loud enough to blow more than just the doors off the back of the van.

It is the sound of a great band letting rip, paying tribute to a friend and hero by simultaneously showcasing a song, and making it their own.

B-side (I love b-sides, and all hail anybody who makes the effort to release one in these desultory days of stand alone singles) Red/Blue Day is a Volcanics original that similarly rocks from start to finish. Over a handful of albums they have never once fallen short of delivering great songs, full of melody and riffs and emotion. I’d like to add barely tempered aggression – but this ain’t no shouty metal thing, this is rock n’ f’n roll, and the aggression is more in their assertive playing, not anger or pugnaciousness. The Volcanics deliver confidence: when they plug their guitars in, they know they’re one of the best bands in the world, so stand back and prepare to be blown away as they prove it.

Why’d Ya Do That To Me? More like, please do it some more!