Try to buy a copy of 'Crystal Cuts', the sophomore record by Brisbane band Shifting Sands, from a record store in France and you will be leaving disappointed and empty-handed.
That's because outside of Australia, Shifting Sands have found their strongest following in French audiences and have recently returned from playing at the Binic Folks Blues Festival where Australian artists are the taste du jour and account for at least half the line-up.
“They love Australian rock & roll, that's for sure,” Shifting Sands frontman Geoff Corbett says.
So great is the love, particularly for Shifting Sands, that the new 'Crystal Cuts' album has become harder to find than Venus de Milo's arms.
'Crystal Cuts' arrives four years after their 2015 debut album 'Beach Coma', which Geoff says had set a very high standard for the band. “As far as a debut record goes, I think it's pretty bloody good and it was hard to follow up,” he says.
“'Beach Coma' was one of those freak records, for me at least because it kind of came out of nowhere; when it clicked, it happened really quickly. We'd been writing songs for a while, then that batch of songs had that cohesion in the studio, and when it finally all got done and tidied up we ended up with a pretty good record.”
Having struck on a winner out of the gate, Shifting Sands set about working on a second release that would justify the success of 'Beach Coma' as more than a first-time fluke.
“I think 'Crystal Cuts' took a little bit longer because as the follow up to ['Beach Coma'], we didn't want to make the same record but we didn't want to go too far left of field with it. We'll save that for the next record, which we've just started writing,” he adds with a laugh.
With a third record indeed under construction, Geoff says that quality songcraft remains the primary concern of Shifting Sands. “We're definitely taking a different approach with it, but the main Shifting Sands mantle is the songwriting,” he emphasises.
“They've got to be good songs to start with and if you've got good songs, the overarching vibe usually happens. It's when you try to make something sound good with bad songs that you'll run into trouble. It's the old adage of you can't polish a turd.”
Shifting Sands will put 'Crystal Cuts', not to mention their older songs, on show at Sunlit Sounds in northern Brisbane, a suburban festival that's earned the chirpy moniker of 'Splendour In The Gap'. Other bands on the bill are The Stress Of Leisure, It's Magnetic, Primitive Motion, Minor Premiers and Martyrs Of Modern Progress.
“I'm really looking forward to it because this is going to be our first gig back and we did some pretty big festival stages overseas, and it's going to be fun to do a festival in The Gap, get little kids dancing and that sort of vibe.”
For Geoff, a man who has lived the rock & roll life as part of SixFtHick and now works an honest nine-to-five, his songwriting focus has switched dramatically. “If I was in the position where I had to make money out of releasing music it'd be different,” he says.
“It's hard for a young band to. . . slip back into putting albums out. They really do have to tack together a few EPs and it's a drawn-out process of singles, then they might finally get to an album. That's the way that in that market you stay relevant. When it's not a race, you can take your time and put out records.”
