SINGLE REVIEW: The Smith Street Band – “Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams”

Artist: The Smith Street Band
Song: “Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams”
Album: Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams
Label: Poison City Records

There’s voices in this world that can speak endlessly without saying anything, and then there’s voices that can say everything with a simple turn of phrase. Undoubtedly Will Wagner is gifted with the latter, and on “Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams,” Wagner’s familiar, heavily-accented and weathered drawl is in fine form, turning a few lines and a simple melody into an emotion drenched five-minute journey through the last two years of The Smith Street Band’s existence.

An instant folk-punk classic, “DFWOD” is the perfect example of what makes this Melbourne quartet special. Merging Wagner’s distinctive voice and transcendent lyricism with the band’s jagged, punk-infused rhythms, “DFWOD” is a gloriously disheveled tribute to a life lived in constantly unfamiliar surroundings.

From the moment Wagner invites you into their world with a heartfelt lament about needing rest, (“I haven’t been to bed since the last time that I saw you, because going to bed or floor, doesn’t quite provide the eight hours that my body is screaming for”) “DFWOD” is a masterful display of song-writing that effortlessly transitions from quiet contemplation to balls-out punk-rock bedlam and back again. A voyeuristic listening experience, this is what real life sounds like.

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