The Prize
In The Red

Them too, from Melbourne.

They popped up three years ago, almost out of nowhere, with an EP titled “Wrong Side Of Town”, and the 2 minutes and 43 seconds of the opening title track made me hope that those five would wreak havoc sooner or later. Two more tracks, blended at lightning speed in just over three minutes, made me certain that the havoc was inevitable—just a matter of time. Then, just to be clear where they stood, here came a remake with a Buzzcocks attitude of the semi-unknown English powerpoppers Incredible Kidda Band.

Originally there were Nadine on vocals and drums, Carey on vocals and guitar, Joseph and Austin also on guitars, and Jack on bass; today it’s still them, with Ethan now on bass instead of Jack; the three guitars remain firmly in place, and when powerpop bursts into hard rock, a wall of sound collapses on you, making quite an impression.

Nadine is the only one with a little story to tell: her dad plays drums with the wonderful Cosmic Psychos and so she makes a small, amused appearance in one of their videos, together with another teenager full of hopeful beauty, and there’s no need to say who that is.

The Prize were born right there, when that little blonde spark put wild ideas in Nadine’s head—like how with music you can set Melbourne on fire, make it burn with something other than boredom, and then set all of Australia and, in the end, the entire world ablaze.

“Wrong Side Of Town” is all about this—the impatience to burn through passions and emotions in a flash.

The year after, the story repeats itself, even more compressed: just two songs to shout at whoever has the will to listen that you have something inside you that you just can’t control, tossing you from one side to the other without respite, and so pounding on the drums, breaking string after string on a guitar, and screaming into a mic is just another way to survive—nothing more, nothing less.

No matter how small, that too is havoc.

Then comes “Had It Made”, it’s 2024, and it honestly feels like I’m going back 40 years, to when I was firmly convinced that the New Christs, for some mysterious reason, had it in for the whole world—including me—, and before granting us an album wanted to see us crawling at their feet, begging for salvation even though we didn’t deserve it—a drip-feed, single after single after single, one a year for eight straight years. The New Christs, Sydney, still Australia, damned Australia.

Two months ago, “From The Night”, a wonder just as much (if not more) than “Had It Made”, and honestly, I can’t take it anymore, so fuck it Carey, I hope your neighbors smash that guitar over your head, and screw you too Nadine, maybe someone will even steal your drum set.

And yet I made it through, because I’m tough as a rock, I didn’t bend, I didn’t break, and I made it to yesterday and to “In The Red”.

The night before, I fell asleep reciting the tracklist by heart like a multiplication table: 11 songs, 4 I already know – “From The Night” and “Had It Made”, plus “First Sight” and “Say You’re Mine” from the 2023 single – the other 7 could well be delirious prog-freak nonsense and the album would still be a masterpiece. Instead, Nadine and the gang manage to do even better, because “Down The Street” is, for me, terrifyingly beautiful.

Now that a day has passed and the album has been spinning nonstop, the feeling is the same excitement that Amyl and the Sniffers gave me when they debuted—the coolest thing to happen to punk in the new century, or something like that—except The Prize aren’t punk, aren’t hard rock, aren’t glam, aren’t powerpop, but are a bit of all those things together: pure, untainted, indefinable rock’n’roll, and it’s amazing to be swept away by it.

And even now, with Nadine driving the bulldozer straight at me, there’s no way I’m dodging, just like back in the days of “Go The Hack” by uncle Ross, uncle Peter and uncle Bill.

I can’t think of a better way to say just how good these Prize are.