It's the journey, not the destination

In 2006 the legendary Australian underground grunge band The Love Mussels embarked on a rare world tour. Subsequently the aptly named Global Conspiracy Tour descended into what has been described as chaos.

Then, without notice and without explanation, this contrarian group of master musicians and songwriters simply disappeared. Nothing was heard of them for almost 15 years. Then just as suddenly they re-emerged from an island off the coast of Belize in Central America and began rehearsing new material for what would become It’s all relative – Redux.

Their time in self-imposed isolation had seen them turn inward in search of a catalyst to a new beginning and the platform to those ends appeared in their deep relationship with the life and times of Albert Einstein. Einstein has long been regarded as a true genius; a theoretical physicist associated with E=MC2 and theories around space and time. He was also a highly credentialed musician in his own right. It’s to Einstein and his life that the songs of this album belong.

The Love Mussels have decided to take the listener on a journey by leaving a big city lifestyle in the west and travelling east to India to seek both a connection with Einstein and his interest in eastern mysticism and for their own taste of enlightenment.

The harsh industrial scale grunge of their past albums has been subtly toned down to a more sophisticated form of rock with songs that touch on Einstein’s two wives, his Nobel winning theories and his search for answers beyond pure science.

The album, released as a limited edition collector’s piece, divides its two sides into the Journey to India and Enlightenment and the darker Journey back to Reality. The band recorded the entire album live in the studio over four days in January this year. It’s a testament to their ability that they have managed to capture the true character of the band while navigating new material and a fresh approach to arrangement and structure against a backdrop of cocktails and Italian small goods.

For me, The Love Mussels remain something of an enigma. A hippy-trippy psychedelic band like no other. Forged in the hard drinking clubs and pubs of Australia producing a sprawling array of diverse albums such as Dirty World, Castro’s Last Cigar (banned in Cuba), Comfortable and Relaxed, Lobster Bisque, Seafood Bisque and the unreleased and much anticipated Monterey and a rumoured double live recording and DVD from the disastrous 2006 Global Conspiracy Tour.

These grandfathers of Australian grunge continue to rock-on and reveal more and deeper layers to their storied career. Political, provocative, probing and unforgiving in their pursuit of sonic purity, the Love Mussels are back; and they are bigger than before. And don’t we love it.