Midnight Oil
Place Without a Postcard - Columbia 1981  Tracks: 1. Don't Wanna Be The One / 2. Brave Faces / 3. Armistice Day / 4. Someone Else To Blame / 5. Basement Flat / 6. Written In The Heart / 7. Burnie / 8. Quinella Holiday / 9. Loves On Sale/ 10. If Ned Kelly Was King / 11. Lucky Country Comments:I became a big fan of Midnight Oil during the time when the group released excellent albums such as "Diesel and Dust", "Blue Sky Mining" and "Earth and Sun and Moon" in the late 1980s and and the early 1990s. Although the group's political commitment and indignation on these albums was an important and inseparable part of the group's image and self-understanding, the music, although hard-hitting, was "spiced with well-sounding guitars of fine vocal harmonies, and not least very melodic songs.
I continued to follow the group in the following years, and although the later albums turned out somewhat more uneven, they still had the characteristics of the band.
It was only natural to also look at the group's back catalog, and in this connection I must admit, even though the good will was very much present, I had a little harder time finding real excitement in myself. It was solid and well-executed rock, often rooted in early punk; but I missed the really good tunes.
"Place Without a Postcard" from 1981 is quite typical of the group's sound during this early period, and as mentioned, you never go wrong with Midnight Oil, if you are looking for solid basic rock, with lots of commitment.
Something decisive happened for the group's music when Bonus Hillman entered in 1987. Both sound and songwriting matured and he has undoubtedly played a large part in this development. So sad that he died much too early in November 2020. A great loss for the band and the music in general. He managed to appear on the group's most recent album "The Makarrata Project" from October 2020. A brand new album "Resist" is said to be on the way, with a planned release in early 2022.
Back to "Place Without a Postcard"; I just have to round off the album by concluding that besides being a fine rock album it does also have memorable tracks like "Don't Wanna Be the One", "Basement Flat" and "Quenella Holiday"
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