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Embassy (Not the Laneway Bar)

Ben’s already made reference to ‘em here and so it seems that Blacklevel Embassy (or is it blacklevelembassy?) have effortlessly become, in not much time at all really, a credible Melbourne rock band. The kind of crew you should have zero trepidation yakking about obnoxiously in the Tote front bar (but, alas, probably not in the Cobra Lounge…). Most of BLE’s nagging familiarity probably stems from the presence of cool man on campus Brett O’Riley (“Bretthereberock”) expertly reprising his over-the-top bassist provocateur shtick alongside mulleted meataxe Adam Cooper who, if the live shows are anything to go by, clearly takes pleasure in violating the assembled hipsters with his menacing front-and-centre growl (has anyone noticed the trend towards hulking 6 foot frontmen in this city all of a sudden? - more on this story later) . Anyway, it’s Thereberock’s impressive indie pedigree that’s scrawled all over “Leave the Vultures Nothing”, an appropriately direct (and prescriptive) second track that does a natty job veering between multiple musical standpoints. Warped’s overdriven chugginess is expertly interspersed with Ricaine’s more nuanced nerdyness (and for that matter, nervousness…). But, on this cut at least, the time honoured Warped approach wins out in fuck off full stop-style.

Buy it.