Young & Restless

Young & Restless
Dot Dash, 2007

On stage before the election, Karina Utomo looked like John Howard's nightmare – an angry, female Muslim immigrant with plenty to say and a whole bunch of kids preparing to vote for the first time to say it to. The interplay between Karina and bassist Ross, a tall skinny white guy with a mop of black hair hanging over his eyes like the incarnation of the masculine rock 'n' roll dream, was magnificent to watch. About half his height, she would duck under Ross's arms while he was holding his guitar up to the crowd and then jump up on the foldback speaker and run her finger across her throat while screaming. After stage-diving into the audience, Karina would hang in the air on the kids' fingertips contorted into a weird position like she was having a seizure and belt out the next song.

Young & Restless's debut full-length captured the intensity of the band's live show better than most studio albums. It was a half-hour blast of metal-inspired noise with razor-sharp bass lines and track titles including 'Police! Police!' and 'Satan', on which Karina vented her very swollen spleen like a shrieking axe-murderer. "I'm sick of saying yes, oh I'm sick of saying yes," she chanted on the wonderful 'Black (Kids)' and "I'm not speaking your language, no/ Just don't tell me to!" during 'I Pointed At You And You Burst Into Flames'.

Released on a trendy label and accompanied by slick publicity shots, the band's album ended up falling into the gap between the mainstream and underground – too polished for bleeding-edge critics and too abrasive for the majority of casual listeners. But no other Australian group captured the pissed-off spirit of youth or released anything with as much balls this year, and the fact Young & Restless were overlooked for Triple J's end-of-year award after winning Unearthed is only due to the fact they haven't had 15 years to descend into middle-of-the-road drivel like Silverchair. I can't think of a better way to re-phrase the introduction I used for an article in July: "Indonesian siblings form metal band with maths teacher and advertising type, hire gangly bassist and blast out of Canberra playing songs about the devil." Young & Restless are 2007's Frankenstein.

This column is part of a three-week series covering the best local releases of the year.