Melbourne’s folk punk story-telling balladeers Sordid Ordeal (Fronted by the Voice of Flinders Station, Laurence Hewson) have just released new single, Black Straps, and will be launching their debut album When I Left Town in February.

The first of a two-part coming-of-age story based semi-autobiographically on the move Laurence made from the country to the city. The album traces its way from Wagga Station in the New South Wales Riverina, down the Main Southern Line, and over the Victorian border to the concrete canyons and dark alleyways of Melbourne.

With its giant, meandering riff and foot stomping fuzz, Black Straps is about leaving behind country nightlife and the culture shock of being thrown in the deep end of Melbourne’s bar scene in the dawn of the twenty first century. Short and sweet the track packs a hefty punch and harks back to the glory days of Aus Rock.

Having first met Sordid Ordeal on an early New South Wales tour, the band has always been a tour-de-force, roaming the country in a Ford Falcon station wagon, tearing up pubs, and playing an explosive combination of battle cries, rock, blues and folk. Having recruited experienced musicians from The Ramshackle Army, The Bottlers, The Ugly Kings, Winter Moon and Decadence of Cain, Sordid Ordeal is now a potent, sonic machine.

The album will be available on 16 February and will launch at Shotkickers, in Thornbury, on Saturday 24 February with Sordid Ordeal joined by a small army of bands. Black Straps is the final single to be released ahead of the album.

https://ditto.fm/when-i-left-town