Sheriff’s new album is chaos in the best way
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12.06.2019

Sheriff’s new album is chaos in the best way

Words by Rhys McKenzie

Tricking you into a false sense of security, Sheriff's 'The Album' is Monty Python meets Pink Floyd.

“Southernpsychedelichorrorbluesrock” is a label Melbourne trio Sheriff have given themselves. However, after hearing their long-awaited debut album, The Album, only one word should be associated with them… pandemonium.

You get lured into thinking this band is your ordinary blues-rock outfit with their badass first track ‘The House of Ill Fame’. It’s got a riff so cool even John Wayne would raise an eyebrow. But those feels are eventually stripped away for a wickedly horror-rock touch with tracks such as ‘The First and Last River Hotel’ and ‘Lover’s Call’.

From this, you realise it’s chaos the whole album, not bad but good chaos. Sheriff are liberated from the get-go moving with their song structures, adhering only to their emotions – which are admittedly whacky. Their frivolity can be summed up on the Monty Python-esque ‘March of the Flies’ with its raucous horn solos and boisterous polyrhythms.

It comes to another highpoint with the progressive swan song, ‘Change of the Seasons’, depicting a descent into madness that Pink Floyd would be proud of.

Audacious to the point of near heroism and lunacy at the same time, Sheriff deliver their debut with jolting fluidity and a little added cheekiness.

8.5