Hoodoo Gurus Stoneage Romeos

The cover of Hoodoo Gurus’ debut album perfectly encapsulates its audio treasures. With its Day-Glo colours and schlock B-movie image of a Tyrannosaurus rex towering over a terrified woman, it suggests a band from another time—which, in some ways, they were. While many of their contemporaries in 1984 were concerned with aping New Romantic acts like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, Hoodoo Gurus were more focused on creating a sonic cocktail of stomping glam rock à la The Sweet and T. Rex and the gritty guitar histrionics of ’50s rockers like Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran, with a dose of Hank Williams thrown in for good measure. Death is a recurring theme, albeit with a knowing wink—“Dig It Up” finds its bereaved protagonist considering exhuming his partner’s remains; “Leilani” is about the daughter of a Pacific Island chief sacrificed to the gods—and humour is never far away. Witness the lyrics to the bombastic “I Was a Kamikaze Pilot”: “I was a kamikaze pilot/They gave me a plane, I couldn’t fly it/Taught how to take off, I don’t know how to land...”. A new force in Australian music had arrived.