Nothing good happens after a certain time of night in Fortitude Valley. Seasoned fiends who’ve lived here for years like me know that at some point, you’ve basically got three options once everyone else has bailed. Go home, end up doing shit coke at the strippers, or score something more serious that will quickly turn you into a regular fixture outside the train station asking passerbys for a dollar.
When I first heard that Gold Coast rocker prchr. had written a whole album about the darker side of Brisbane’s red-light district I was immediately intrigued. I reckoned that his roaring rock songwriting would be the perfect thing to encapsulate the iniquity of a place that’s helped birth a million bands.
I was right.
prchr. makes Rock music with a capital R. It’s all about the fuzzed-out, bluesy riffs and the pounding, relentless rock rhythms with his music. His vocals are typically clean and have great range but he busts out a scream once in a while. If you’re a fan of early Royal Blood, you’ll find plenty to love.
Album Two: THE PAVEMENT follows on from his 2024 debut, Album One: everything that’s wrong with me. Like Album One, Album Two: THE PAVEMENT is a concept album and continues the story prchr.’s nameless protagonist. Having successfully escaped Southport, our hero makes their way to Brisbane for a slice of the night life but things quickly turn awry and the question of the night soon becomes: Will I survive?
The opener track welcome is exactly what it says on the tin, delivering a soft, spacy intro to the album that sounds almost orchestral at times. After this point however, the album grabs the listener by the scruff of the neck and launches them right into the thick of it. GNCDE is a track that punches you right in the face just like its title might suggest, with its pounding drum beats and raucous guitar riffs. It’s the sort of track that just keeps building and building as it powers its way towards a cacaphonous climax.
The titular track THE PAVEMENT keeps the heaviness high but goes for those big dynamic shifts from loud to quiet that you’ll find across a lot of grunge tracks. No One’s Coming continues to up the ante with guitars that wouldn’t be out of place on a DZ Deathrays song as well as some gnarly screams.
Humpty Dumpty brings in some of those Royal Blood vibes and features some of my favourite lyrics on the album referencing the titular character and London Bridge Is Falling Down with a local twist. When prchr. mentions the Story Bridge, it reminded me of when I first heard Violent Soho say Old Cleveland Road on Liars. Not often you get to hear about places you’ve been to a million times in your hometown on an album unless you live in a major city.
Exhausted serves as a change of pace and gives the album a bit of space to breathe. It has a melancholy quality to it with lyrics that are more introspective about one’s path in life. Kingscliff II doubles down on the change of pace and serves up some very mellow, soft shoegaze vibes and that longing sense of angst that comes with a lot of songs in the genre. little white lies in another out of genre experience for prchr. bringing in dark pop and R n’ B vibes with a flare of fuzz.
After a bit of a lull, WHO’S GONNA SAVE YOU NOW? jolts you right back into rockstar territory. It’s got a great, almost looping melody to it and these layered, thick guitars that really give it some punch. The first half of the closing track happy starts out almost like Something in the Way with the soft vocals and acoustic guitar but like usual prchr. has a surprise in store for listeners.
You get to the halfway mark and the track roars right into your ears and stampedes its way towards a massive climax before returning to the soft acoustic guitars and then fading out. It leaves the listener with the lyrics “The only thing I know is how to be alone” ringing in their ears as the album comes to a close.
Aside from the drums, prchr. recorded the entirety of the project in just under two weeks, with nothing but a recently purchased audio interface and a singular microphone. He also produced and released the record independently. The album sounds massive for something that was done mostly in the bedroom. It takes a lot of skill and songwriting chops to make an album that sounds so big with such a small set-up.
Album Two: THE PAVEMENT can be listened to on all streaming platforms and stores. It is also available as a limited CD release that you can exclusively purchase from the man himself.
Give it the album a listen below and let us know your thoughts!
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