Genre-bending Tropical Fu k Storm are back with their highly anticipated fourth album, Fairyland Codex, on their new label home Fire Records. Recorded with co-producer Michael Beach at the band’s Dodgy Brothers studio in Nagambie, Australia, the songs on Fairyland Codex immerse us in the chaos of a fateful landslide, picking out the characters that litter the impending collapse of society.
Tropical Fu k Storm formed when guitarist and vocalist Gareth Liddiard and bassist and vocalist Fiona Kitschin’s previous band, The Drones, went on hiatus in 2016. Joined by guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Erica Dunn and drummer Lauren Hammel, the group has released a string of critically acclaimed albums and gained a reputation for their incendiary live shows.
Acidic, acerbic, anarchic; Tropical Fu k Storm’s command of wordplay, undercut by snarling guitars, pulsing rhythms, and explosive salvos, populates a hinterland between light and dark. The vocal interplay between Liddiard and the soaring harmonies of Kitschin and Dunn creates a teetering balancing act that’s intensified by the frantic narratives that evolve from their collective psyche.
‘Goon Show’ channels Liddiard’s husky baritone, in a track that feels like a nightclub singer crash-landing into a dystopian post-grunge fever dream. Filled with well-schooled social anarchy ‘Bloodsport’ has a Talking Heads-styled funk and a stuttering guitar break. ‘Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser’ is a classic overestimation of knowledge with a ranting preacher highlighted over a disenfranchised choir of would-be none believers and ‘Teeth Marché’ glints with gold tooth pleasantries before rhyming “bad luck” with “sick fuck”. All the while discordant love and a promise of everlasting affection reverberate as they hitch up the audio equivalent of stepping on a rake.
“There’s an Anna Akhmatova poem where she talks about how much life sucks and how the world is just a shithole full of arseholes then she says something like, ‘why then do we not despair?’.” Liddiard pontificates, “Charles Darwin could give her the short answer, but music has the 12-inch metaphysical party mix solution.”
Release: Friday, June 20th, 2025, Fire Records
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