Midnight Oil - Midnight Oil (1978)

Whilst global success would finally come to Australia’s Midnight Oil in 1987 with their 6th album Diesel and Dust featuring their biggest hit Beds Are Burning, their origins were of a much more humble and parochial nature. The Sydney-based outfit, led by the charismatic and distinctive Pete Garrett, later to be government cabinet minister (yes really!), gigged relentlessly in and around the city gaining a hardcore following during the latter half of the 1970s. As a sign of their drive and ambition the band took the bold step of setting-up their own record company, Powderworks, and set about recording their eponymous debut album in the summer of 1978 for release later that same year. Whilst not receiving the widespread critical acclaim of some of their later works the album does provide a strong glimpse of what was to come and showcases a set of distinctive and fresh sounding tracks that had been honed on the Sydney club circuit during the months prior to its recording.

Powderworks opens proceedings with a cutting guitar chord patter over which Martin Rotsey solos for several bars before the track moves into its feature riff which is uptempo and chord-sequence based. The production is a little questionable throughout the album but certainly the rhythm guitar sound here is cutting an really adds an edge to the already angst-ridden nature of the track. The mid-section drops to a bass riff over which there is a brief solo and some drum breaks before in quite a hard rock/metal vain which is something that would largely disappear from the Oils’ later output as they honed their distinctive sound.

Head Over Heels is a more commercial-sounding track – once again opening with an instrumental intro and is more of a blue print of the sound that would define the band with sparser instrumentation and with the bass anchoring the track and the guitars adding twiddles and flourishes to embellish the melody

I can never quite put my finger on what it is but there’s a distinctively Australian feel to this track – and many other of the Oils – such as there was to earlier INXS albums and some of Skyhooks earlier output that sets the Australian music scene a bit apart and makes it somewhat unique from the US/UK scene at that time . . . which is a definite positive. This is also apparent in Dust through a sparsity in the instrumentation that flew in the face of the penchant of their US/UK counterparts to fill every gap with instrumentation whereas here things are stripped back and heavily atmospheric. The guitar break is particularly strong on Dust too and Pete Garrett does what he does best – paints a picture lyrically!

Used and Abused is a driving uptempo track featuring once again, strong lyrics that conjure-up a powerful mental image: “It’s 2 am in Town Hall Station, black walls and sleeping drunks are bad companions”.

Surfing With A Spoon is a mellower affair than the previous tracks at its intro which is very much in the ‘New Wave’ genre as is the whole track and built around a bass melody and heavily chorused guitar picking. Rather oddly there’s a semi-classical/Deep Purple-esque organ piece in the middle of the track before the band kick-in for an extended guitar solo . . . but it all works quite well as the various sections of the track are woven together quite skillfully.

Run By Night is more akin to the opening track in as much as it’s a mid-tempo straight ahead rock track driven by the twin guitars of Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie. Sitting somewhere as a mix of early Cure, Magazine and XTC with a few other ingredients thrown-in for good measure, Midnight Oil in their rockier moments manage to create quite a unique sound which is heard nowhere to greater effect than on Run By Night.

Nothing Lost, Nothing Gained closes the album and open with an almost pro-leaning instrumental passage with extended guitar soloing – not shredding – over some very spacial chord sequences before Pete Garrett comes in to again largely a drum and bass track with the odd phased guitar chord. The opening line packs a punch – “In my world there are sorrows, I’d rather drown in happiness” – and there are some strong instrumental passages throughout the eight and half minute opus.

It’s difficult to know precisely what to say in summation of Midnight Oil as it’s clear that in 1978 they hadn’t quite found ‘their sound’ and were veering from style to style, pulling elements from hard rock, indie/new wave etc and attempting to mould them into something fresh. The achievement here is that they almost succeed and the album is a good listen and reasonably coherent although lyrically it’s a little vague in part but lyrical poignance was definitely something that would be honed to perfection on later albums by the band. Midnight Oil represents very much a ‘work in progress’, but an enjoyable one at that and I’d definitely recommend giving it a listen.

• Peter Garrett – Vocals
• Martin Rotsey – Guitar
• Jim Moginie – Guitar, Keyboards
• Andrew James – Bass
• Rob Hirst – Drums