This is Matt Banham’s first solo album, although he’s the prime mover of Adelaide’s long-running No Through Road, which began as a solo project. A digital self-release, Self-Destruct tucks 10 songs into a thrifty 30 minutes, eschewing NTR’s tongue-in-cheek indie rock for folky tunes that resonate in their sparseness. Banham has wryly called them protest songs, but they’re simply home-recorded ditties peppered with occasional guests and a few different approaches. Just don’t expect a lot of big choruses and electric guitars.

The album’s opening line is, “I feel my darkness coming back”, delivered over shivering synth and a hiccuping drum machine. It’s got a frazzled, slow-burning urgency that sets us up for the rest of the album. The marriage of cheap synths and canned beats, meanwhile, reappears only on the hypnotic ‘Save Me’ and the echo-swamped ‘17 Times’. The rest of the album leans towards rickety folk – from the Palace-esque ‘Baby, My Heart’s On Fire’ to the percussively makeshift ‘Quiet’. ‘Waiting For The End’ reaches for a bluesier folk melody, with comforting harmonies by Batrider’s Sarah Chadwick and Steph Crase, and ‘Take Aim’ once more pits Banham’s nasal, lethargic singing against themes of love and death.

While there’s not a bad song here, three really stand out. With mournful violin from No Through Road’s Nic Datson stirring atop dirgey guitar and drums, ‘Dam’ recalls The Dirty Three, although Banham’s creepy account of a tragic drowning makes it his own. Also with whiffs of the murder ballad, ‘Death Mocks Me In My Sleep’ details the self-destructive streak alluded to by the album’s title. Zac Coligan of the Sea Thieves adds singing saw and the lyrics seem to tie the other songs together. The closing ‘ttrr’ is the most noisy and unstable, spiked with lyrics about losing blood and faking one’s own death.

Loose-knit and unhinged, there’s an exposed quality to Self-Destruct that suits Banham’s thematic preoccupations at the moment. It’s a detour, certainly, but the songs are deceptively strong. Available as a free stream or $4 download, this will be a welcome curiosity to No Through Road fans but deserves to be heard beyond that camp as well.

by Doug Wallen