Midnight Oil
Diesel and Dust

THE REVIEW

Damned clichés. You try to shake them off, but somehow they always find you: they inhabit the dirtiest and most degraded rooms of the collective imagination and they catch your eye as soon as you turn off your brain for a moment. Italians? Pizza, spaghetti, and mandolin, obviously. The English? Fish and chips, hooligans, umbrella, and bowler hat. You get the idea. And Australians?

Let's see: sea, desert, a huge sky, kangaroos, kookaburra, koala, more kangaroos, more desert, the "bush," a dingo howling at an enormous moon, the blood-stained rock of Ayers Rock, yet more kangaroos, the Aborigines traveling in dreams, eucalyptus plants, the platypus, a few more kangaroos, the Maori who are in New Zealand but who cares, we're at the antipodes anyway, and then the surfers, I think I forgot the kangaroos, did I mention them?

As you may have guessed, we're talking about Australia.
The classic postcard one that can only be imagined by those who have never been there. Like me.
A bit like Salgari made his readers imagine mysterious India (in his case, however, he completely made it up), the Midnight Oil, a band from Sydney with a farmer-like aesthetic, took me to Australia in 1987 with their "Diesel and Dust": a title and a cover capable of perfectly capturing the album's atmosphere, full of dust and fuel, scorched by the sun. An album of deserted roads and midday ecstasies that still sounds exactly like my cliché of Australia, even though it's anything but superficial.

Midnight Oil, throughout their long career (almost 25 years), have well narrated the deep soul of their country. Their commitment to environmental protection and the rights of Aboriginal minorities was evident from raw, passionate lyrics imbued with social themes: not surprisingly, the singer Peter Garrett left the group about a decade ago, ending it, to dedicate himself to politics on behalf of the local Labor Party. He served as Minister for the Environment and is currently Minister for School Education, Early Childhood, and Youth. Not bad for an old rocker...

But in the end, how is this blessed CD?
I find it 70% successful, rich in qualities but not without limitations. Garrett on vocals, charismatic, very tall, and bald, reminds me a bit of Matt Johnson from The The, but less autistic and more rebellious. The guitars sound warm and natural. In the most effective tracks, like the rough, beautiful "Dead Heart," the hypnotic "Whoah," "Put Down That Weapon," the harsh "Sell My Soul," and "Gunbarrel Highway," Midnight Oil's sun-scorched rock hovers around the inspired solo debut of Robbie Robertson, which also came out in 1987.

It's a pity that an excess of '80s tones and the temptation of pop refrains end up ruining the lyrical and musical tension of some tracks; especially "Sometimes," "Warakurna," and "Dreamworld." There's a bit too much of an attempt to blend rock with more easily accessible sounds. The single "Beds Are Burning" managed to balance the various ingredients and launched these "rednecks" with hearts of gold among the international stars. Success in their homeland lasted for years, earning them eleven "Aria," the Australian equivalent of the Grammy Award, but in subsequent records, the magic of the Great Platypus (a reference to...? ) was lost along the way.

Considering their seemingly immense potential at the time, I regard them largely as a missed opportunity, but this "Diesel and Dust" still sounds like a great Australian postcard. We're on a big dirt road in the desert, the sunset light sets Ayers Rock ablaze, there are Aborigines, big trucks, koalas clinging to eucalyptus trees, and I'm breastfeeding a baby platypus. In the distance, the call of a kookaburra, the howl of a dingo, the ... of a kangaroo. By the way, what the heck sound does a kangaroo make?