v/a- DOWN UNDER NUGGETS (Original Australian Artyfacts 1965-1967) 2LP

SEALED.

Limited edition of 1000 numbered copies. Totally out-of-print.

Pop historians entertain differing theories to explain why tough, unrepentant, up-in-your-grille British bands such as The Who, The Yardbirds and the early Kinks should have had a far more immediate and resonant influence in countries outside the UK. Australian groups in particular fell heavily for the alluring combination of straight-baiting hair, orgasmic yelps, maracas brandished as weaponry, and rave-up crescendos; Down Under Nuggets accordingly compiles 29 tracks bristling with the stuff.

It’s all about bumptious freakbeat groups: snarling, chippy vocalists, and guitars riven with feedback. The percentage of genre classics beggars belief: By My Side by The Elois, Buried And Dead by The Master’s Apprentices and Black by The Throb exude so much frantic vehemence that they practically consume themselves, while Come On by The Atlantics is a thudding brood-and-release dynamo in the manner of Save My Soul by The Wimple Winch. Weirdoids include The Purple Hearts – whose Early In The Morning sounds like the recently deceased chanting an emaciated work song – and The Loved Ones, whose eponymous single features a Dalek blues vocal and uneasily juxtaposes two time signatures.

Don’t miss Like Nobody Else by the callow young Bee Gees, clearly in thrall to The Kinks and gifting posterity with an aberrant nanny-goat raga passage.