A confident swagger abounds on 'Deathwish', the fourth album by Brisbane-based collective The Gin Club, writes ANDREW MCMILLEN.

On their fourth album, Brisbane rock / folk / country /whatever goes collective The Gin Club sprint out of the blocks. 'Pennies' grabs you firmly by the ears and doesn't let up throughout two minutes of bluesy guitar licks and hair-raising vocals that aren't so much sung as yelled. Its brevity speaks of the confident swagger that abounds on Deathwish. Multi-instrumentalist Ola Karlsson knew he was onto a good thing when he wrote this song, and while he could easily have stuck around for a final verse-chorus-coda, he chose to smother it prematurely. That, ladies and gentlemen, is confidence.

Unlike their previous release – the 26-song, double-disc Junk – this album's liner notes are sparse: no songwriting credits, no lyrics, and little to suggest that the album's 13 songs belong to 10 individuals. (In case you were wondering, I’m only able to comment on who wrote what because I have a cheat-sheet in front of me). This is a new look for The Gin Club. Whether conscious or not, they're obscuring facts and leaving some things to our imagination. On stage, one of the band's most striking visual elements is the constant swapping of musical instruments and stage positions between songs. On this album, there's a greater sense of that comfortable barroom feel than ever before. Each new vocalist and songwriter brings a distinctively different voice and approach. Scott Regan's casual 'Slow Down' sounds nothing like Ben Salter's terse 'Eternity', which in turn sounds nothing like Ola Karlsson's pastoral 'Do Right'. This is a good thing. It’s hard to tire of Deathwish when every song is like a completely different chapter, written by a different author who's been influenced by divergent tastes.

“It’s hard to tire of 'Deathwish' when every song is like a completely different chapter, written by a different author who's been influenced by divergent tastes.”

Adrian Stoyles' 'Rain' might be the quintessential Gin Club song. It's marked by a foreboding opening verse ("I know a place where the echoes are mistakes/And the words you thought you said were all a waste") that gives way to a comparatively ebullient chorus lyric ("Into the cold, and blue/Into the light, into you/Into the rain") amid Dan Mansfield's sparkling keyboard and an ascending slide guitar line. Like Karlsson's 'Pennies', 'Rain' opts for brevity: right after a pounding floor tom and cello-led middle-eight, all's said and done within two-and-a-half minutes. Mansfield's album closer, 'Shake Hands', is the longest track here. At four minutes, it's built around a clever, circular melody that leaves ample space to indulge in a couple of accomplished lead breaks (which are notably absent in the other dozen songs). The songwriter shreds like a demon on stage, so it's no surprise that his sole contribution to Deathwish is coloured by bent strings and gusto.

'Book Of Poison', written by Salter's brother-in-law Gordon Stunzner, travels a tangential path to the other songs on this album. As far as I'm aware, it's the first song that Stunzner has recorded, yet his voice is somehow both fragile and confident as he airs his grievances ("I've been ragin'/And accusin'/ Been cursin', swearin', lyin'/ And abusin’") over a compact, waltz-like chord progression that's tapped out by Lewis' cello. The title track, a Conor Macdonald composition, offsets the singer's softly-spoken, circumspect lyrics with layers of soaring, feedback. His tale of following a limping bird ("Deep red lines mark the wing's underside/It was neither blood nor wound") is all but obscured under the overdubs; a shame, as when Macdonald's voice is allowed room to move, it's one of the most affecting weapons in The Gin Club's arsenal. See also: 'I Am My Own Partner', an instrumentally-sparse affirmation of independence using zoological metaphors ("If I could take wing/An albatross/Solitary/I'd rule the sky").

In contrast to Macdonald's ode to self-reliance, Ben Salter rues boredom and isolation in 'Eternity', while seeming to dwell upon past regrets ("Eternity/Have you no dignity?/You played games with men/You made fools of them"). It's a showcase of his vocal prowess. Whether singing lead or back-up vocals, his voice is the band's most distinctive.

Despite the playful title, there's nothing funny about Bridget Lewis' 'Milli Vanilli'. It's a funereal tale of houses destroyed by the Queensland floods ("All those years and years of toil/It's all been washed out with the soil"), and the owners' optimistic reconstruction ("After all, still there's hope/We can mop up, we can cope") despite the obvious futility of living nearby floodplains ("If you live beside the bank/Guess you've got yourselves to thank").

The rhymes are simplistic, but Lewis' sweetly-sung message cuts to the core. On an album full of memorable songs, I can't find a purer example of a songwriting concept complemented by a conclusive musical execution. Heartbreaking, honest and utterly compelling, 'Milli Vanilli' is the high water mark of Deathwish and, perhaps, the band’s career so far.

The Gin Club are revered in their native Brisbane, and herein lies 13 more reminders why. From the urgent ‘Pennies’ to the regal, conclusive ‘Shake Hands’, Deathwish finds them concentrating their efforts toward a singular goal of potent, resonant songwriting. Where their previous albums have been let down by the occasional wayward jaunt, there are no such weaknesses to be found here.

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The Gin Club’s Deathwish is out now through Plus One Records.