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CIVIC came out of Melbourne in 2017 with snarling, '70s-leaning Australian punk and garage noise, and they've spent three records turning that racket into something bigger. Jim McCullough out front, Lewis Hodgson on guitar, Roland Hlavka on bass, Eli Sthapit on drums. They've opened for the Sex Pistols on home turf, and Chrome Dipped, their third LP, trades a little of that punk bluntness for melody, atmosphere and real studio nerve. Produced by Kirin J. Callinan, it landed an ARIA nod for Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album.
We loved this one enough to put it on the shelf ourselves. There's no festival history to point at here, so the connection is simple: we're pressing Chrome Dipped as a Levitation Edition, a "Dipped" Silver/Black LP capped at 150 copies. When a band opens its sound up this confidently, we want it spinning in our rooms.
What gets us about Chrome Dipped is how CIVIC widen the frame without going soft. The guitars still swell and obliterate, but there's air in the mix now, room for a hook to breathe and a melody to actually land. The Fool shows the new range best: feistier and fuller than anything off the first two records, post-punk muscle bent toward something almost poppy. This is a band experimenting on purpose and mostly nailing it.
The press caught it too. Bandcamp Daily made it an Album of the Day, and New Noise clocked it as a genuine reinvention. We're in the same camp.
If we're honest, the experimental streak does cost a little focus. A couple of tracks read more like sketches than the gut-punches CIVIC throw when they lock in. Minor gripe. This is the sound of a punk band growing up loud and not flinching, and that arc is exactly what earns a pressing. Fans of Osees, Frankie and the Witch Fingers and Fuzz will want this one on wax.
Recommended if you like: Osees, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Fuzz.
