Other Voices, Other Rooms, the 2008 debut album by Melbourne band The Getaway Plan is one that weaves these tales of heartbreak, about lose and immense sadness into its music, with an energy and dynamic that has made it an enjoyable listen many times over. It is an album that I listen to often.
The Getaway Plan takes the listener on a wild and exciting ride in many of its album’s songs, particularly Streetlight and Where The City Meets The Sea that evoke an intense mood from within us, and it brings out this lively quality that only a harmonious blend of lyric and music can do.
Songs in the album like A Lover’s Complaint and Transmission have done more than just provoke us to feel, they have aimed to really show the vibrancy of the band. At times they are slow and solemn but then they grow wild, loud and roaring. It builds this world that is exciting but sometimes sad, slow and emotional, then gritty, raw and booming.
Sleep Spindles, a song I am partial to in the album, is haunting but tantalizing, it has this sensational sound that blows you away the moment you hear it, it just reverberates around your body and feels amazing; it is like a full scale riot and marching band rolled into one. Sleep Spindles makes great use to varying sound qualities; it starts slow and then rips into this dynamic song that blasts out from below.
Shadows takes a likewise mood to Sleep Spindles, it is really dark and haunting, and the lyrics tell you about a world crumbling apart, about trying to outrun your shadows and not to get sucked in. Grim but moving, it is one that shows the moods that shapes this album, exposing these metaphoric alleyways full of life’s pain and agony, with melancholic melodies and sparse lyrics.
Other Voices, Other Rooms has much more to offer you than an emotional junkyard, it is a racy and enigmatic album too, and that shakes the very walls of your world and excites you. Songs like Streetlight and Transmission start out as slow songs and the music is a delicate and playful thing to listen to, but then it jumps and evolves into these instantly hard-hitting and thrusting tunes that are almost electric in sensation, a metamorphosis in our ears.
SERPENTS LAIR 