I’ve had a soft spot for Australia’s Amyl and The Sniffers for several years now. Their energetic, uncompromising punk, combined with frontwoman Amy Taylor’s charisma, hit me right in the heart. I love every one of their studio albums, and at their show at this year’s OFF Festival, I was squealing like a prepubescent teenager. Given all that, you could probably accuse me of a pretty extreme lack of objectivity. Still, I’ll do my best to approach their latest – and highly unusual – live album, „Truth or Consequence (Live from El Coyote)”, with the appropriate degree of skepticism. Especially since this time my affection for the band had to contend with a record that, to put it mildly, did not exactly blow me away.
So let’s start with that phrase: „highly unusual”. I get the feeling that when the band came up with the concept for their performance at El Coyote in Los Angeles, they decided to completely deconstruct their own sound. Distortion, noise, and aggression were traded for acoustic guitars, a galloping, heavily country-influenced rhythm, and an atmosphere somewhere between the prairie and a campfire. There is not much punk rock to be found on this album. The band has seriously reworked the arrangements. Opener „Big Dreams”, originally a calm and slightly melancholic song, is transformed into a galloping country-rockabilly number that would fit perfectly at a Montana rodeo. Hell, even the Dutton family would probably get up and dance to this one. „Hertz”, meanwhile, is a punk missile in its original form, but at El Coyote it turns into a nostalgic, almost campfire-style song.
„Jerkin’” is another interesting case. The drums are removed entirely, leaving Amy’s voice front and center over an extremely sparse guitar accompaniment. Of course, Taylor would not be Taylor if she did not allow herself a little political insolence as well – before the song, she throws in a short, blunt comment aimed at today’s political leaders.
My personal favorite is the dark, Western-flavored „Chewing Gum”. „Snakes”, on the other hand, is an absolute nightmare. Look, I understand that a large part of this performance is the band screwing around, but this version is simply AWFUL. What the fuck is this? Some kind of country sea shanty for cowboys three tequilas deep? Every time I hear this song, I want to rinse my ears out with acid. It is also worth mentioning the two completely new tracks: „Fella” and the joking closing number „Bag of Cocaine”, with a clearly amused audience audible in the background.
This band has always had a lot of unpretentious, down-to-earth charm, but for me there is simply too much of it during this performance. You can hear people talking, shouting, and generally filling the room with the atmosphere of a small venue. The whole thing sounds extremely raw – almost like it was captured on a handheld recorder. Of course, you can forgive Amyl and The Sniffers for embracing that kind of aesthetic. They are, after all, a pub-rock punk band. Still, listeners who prefer carefully polished production may have a hard time digesting something this rough. There are technical slip-ups as well, and Taylor does not always manage to carry these arrangements vocally. The slower versions, in particular, expose some of the technical limitations of her voice. But there is no point being too harsh about it – these are musicians who have never pretended to be virtuosos, and Amy’s greatest weapon has always been sheer stage charisma by the ton.
Ultimately, I appreciate the band’s attempt to confront its own catalog from a completely different angle. Personally, though, I have never been much of a fan of this kind of heavily folk-inflected country, and I am not about to become one now. To me, this record is little more than a curiosity, a one-off detour, and I certainly will not be rushing back to it with excitement. I strongly prefer the band’s studio sound. It is worth hearing once, sure, but I am convinced some listeners may come away with a slightly sour taste. Unless, of course, you are a cowboy who loves this kind of thing. In that case, climb onto the bull and put „Truth or Consequence (Live from El Coyote)” on repeat.