The Money War - Home Album

Best perfect pop record I've heard in decades! Can't get enough of this and Dylan's other band Rainy Day Women (3). Don't sleep.

Perth’s favorite creators of dreamy fuzz pop, The Money War have finally released their debut LP. Entitled “Home,” the album evokes the same warm, familiar feelings as the title suggests. Join our resident Australian music expert Andrew from Brooklyn as he takes you through what he reckons is one of the best Aussie records of the year so far.

The Money War have been one of Australia’s hardest working bands since their formation in 2016. Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of their previous bands, The Money War was the result of the songwriting duo of Dylan Ollivierre and Carmen Pepper joining forces. Soon, with guitarist Matt Shehan and drummer Caleb Quartermaine in the fold, the band was touring with Australian powerhouses such as Meg Mac and the legendary Neil Finn, and their ’60s fuzz rock-influenced singles “Recall” and “Stars” receiving heavy rotation on national radio broadcaster Triple J.

After releasing a few more singles in the intervening two and a half years, the band has dropped their first full length record--a collection of some pre-released favorites and some new songs we’ve never heard before.

Home opens with the track “Hey Now,” a smiley, lazy, sunny jam that melts like butter in your ears (without the obvious mess that would cause). It evokes the feeling of spending long summer days with someone you love, making it a microcosm for the album as a whole. Money War’s first ever single “Recall” follows it up, whose triumphant guitar hook and happy-go-lucky feel bring memories of such iconic acts as The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Guess Who. It’s the kind of song that when you hear it, you could have sworn it had been part of the cultural fabric for years--it’s just got that timeless quality about it, a hallmark of what makes a great song.

The album’s third song is its title track, and perhaps their strongest release since “Recall.” Where other Money War songs are happy and blissful, this one is sadder and more wistful, incorporating more dream-like elements. This one sees Carmen take the lead, unlike other songs which feature more split vocal parts between her and Dylan. Her soft, floating timbre highlights the melancholy of the song’s lyrics, particularly its pre-chorus refrain: “I’ll be here when you get home/I’ll be ready if you ever get home to me, don’t worry baby.”

Other lyrical themes on the album include true romance (“Right Kind of Love”), fear of obsolescence (“Hollywood”), and aspirations for greatness (“Stars”). That last one represents another highlight of the record, a jaunty, fuzzed-out bop that speaks to something deeply resonant within all of us: the innate human desire to create something with a lasting impression, that will outlive our own meager existence on earth.

Home is a loved-up ode to the little beauties in life, a sonic interpretation of the warm and fuzzies you feel whenever reach a moment in which you’re truly happy. It’s a thread that runs throughout the record, but is brought home on the album’s stellar closing track, “In the Morning With You.” At 2:22, it’s the shortest runtime of any song on the album, but that’s the point. It’s not self-indulgent or overbearing; rather, it’s simple. With all the complications of a modern existence, the truest, most visceral source of happiness can be found just laying around and doing nothing with that one person you love more than anything. As Dylan sings: “Life can be so cruel/you try and it amounts to nothing/it would be so nice/you and I just floating/ around town in the night/to wake up in the morning with you.”
Thanks to Andrew Becker at RPM, for the above.