MOTORBIKE - Kick It Over LP

Highly recommended.

"There aren’t any Australians in Motorbike, the Cincinnati-based punk band fronted by Welsh expat Jamie Morrison. But their second long-player, the raging Kick It Over, plays like a tour of the past 50 years of rock music from Down Under. We begin in the ‘70s, with the mocking sneer of Bon Scott-era AC/DC and the celebratory stomp of Rose Tattoo’s pub rock; the noisy squelch of perennial cult heroes Feedtime represents the ’80s, and after fast-forwarding to the 21st century, we get tastes of everything from Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Royal Headache to Total Control and R.M.F.C. There are other influences in the mix here—the Stooges and Springsteen, especially—but Motorbike are clearly most enamored by the blend of rowdy, half-drunk energy, weirdo experimentation, and razor-sharp songwriting that Australia has been perfecting since Angus Young was in short pants.

Motorbike’s self-titled debut landed without much ceremony in the summer of 2023. As bracingly sweaty and self-assured as that album is, it’s clearly a rough draft; the stoner’s notebook doodle that graces its cover seems to signal its tossed-off nature. Kick It Over, in telling contrast, has an arresting, kinetic painting of a man starting a motorcycle on its sleeve. (Morrison, an accomplished visual artist in his own right, made both covers.) Everything else about the album is sharper, too. Morrison’s speak-sing vocals, buried deep in the mix on Motorbike, take their place at the forefront of Kick It Over. Always an engaging performer onstage, he now sounds like a true frontman." - Bandcamp Album of the Day

We'll forgive their lack of lowercase " f " in feedtime. Was there any other band BEFORE feedtime that utilised the lowercase to replace the initial uppercase?