- Something about how loud duos are, amiright? Seriously, across the board, Japandroids, Lightning Bolt, Morphine, Tiny Spiders, The White Stripes, it always feels like they’re worried they just won’t be loud enough and overcompensate like crazy. Not that I’m complaining, it produces some certifiably sweet noise. You know, now that I think about it, DZ Deathrays actually got quieter (= less good) when they got that third guy.

Sydney-siders Polish Club work the duo = loud schtick more meaningfully than most. The boiling-over-the-top emotion of David Novak’s bellowed soul has this unhinged, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins thing going on that it would be difficult to convey at any other volume. Despite all the roaring about love -getting it, losin’ it, trying to hold on to it for dear life- there’s a nuance to Novak’s delivery, balancing language and phrases that feel like they belong more to the original era of soul than the present day. Like on single and opening track, Able, when I heard the line “Coz oh, the heart is true / Seein’ through things / Specially ‘cause I was living wrong / So what if I was able...” it just hasn’t been put like that in a while. Novak’s also more than happy to play eras off against each other, like that song which takes everything old and sentimentally doo-wop and titles it Don’t Fuck Me Over.

The same sort of inter-era thing is happening in the accompaniment, taking many different forms of the late ‘50s and ‘60s and, frankly, supercharging them with buzzing, quickly picked guitar lines. It brings the brash, white, garage sounds of the late ‘60s crashing back, like time-travelling teenage brats jumping over everything. It also gives Polish Club a link to the contemporary garage-pop sound which appears to be surging toward another peak in popularity.

Novak’s furious commitment to making everything as intense as possible is impressive and, live, it’s magnetizing. In these six cuts on record, it’s possible that the power obscures the quieter moments that soul can have. Listening to it a few times on repeat, at first it got my heart beating, but then it was like someone was just plain beating on my heart.

On a full-length I’d really like to hear even more of the nuance that this pair are clearly capable of. Maybe it really is time to add that third member, a quieter one that everybody else has to pipe down to hear. In the meantime Polish Club can just do that thing that duos do for rocking, a lot louder than everyone else.

- Chris Cobcroft.