Ostraaly - Misery Guests

Time truly is a motherfucker. Siltbreeze have reportedly been working towards this Ostraaly record for nigh on a decade, hampered innumerable times along the way by logistics and mechanics and pandemics, and then most tragically of all, the unexpected passing in 2021 of the band's driving force, Katherine Daly. If that understandably put the brakes on the whole venture, then it's to the credit of everyone else involved and their honouring of Daly's memory that they've endeavoured to finally get a vinyl edition over the line (you'll note that Tenth Court issued a cassette in 2020, sans one track and with different artwork). Fittingly, perhaps almost inevitably and by design, the music that comprises is the kind you expect to turn up late, a little busted and unkempt, and charming as all hell.  Broadly speaking, this is alt. country with that Straya-core swagger, finding the in-between ground that separates, say, Tarnation from Lower Plenty or Blank Realm. The band play with style and edge, though Daly does star as the shining light, the kind of singer that crushes cans, spits on the mic and can kill with a wink. Misery Guests' origin story comes wrapped in tragedy, but the music is anything but, a charm offensive brimming lustily with life. So yes, time is a motherfucker, and this is where it actually goes - into the things we were, we are, we become and we love.