The Grates Teeth Lost, Hearts Won by: Thomas Mendelovits Thu:18-Sep-08 Label: Dew Process Year: 2008 WB rating 73 out of 100

Before debut full-length Gravity Won’t Get You High, and songs such as ‘19-20-20’, brought their quirky 90s grunge-pop to local youth radio Triple J masses, a number of EPs had marked The Grates as the DIY band par excellence; the three band mates and self-professed ‘besties’ doing their own recordings, design, and merchandising, creating a very strong brand in the process. Gravity added horns and multi-layered guitars to The Grates’ palette but stayed true to their roots as a three-chord three-piece, merely making their sound bigger and more striking. For their second LP, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, however, the band have opted for a sound that easily matches the most overproduced of commercially viable pop rock.

They may not have stayed true to their roots, but winningly, The Grates have retained their knack for high-octave, instantly gratifying tunes. Recording again with Peter Katis (Interpol, The National), this time round the band had co-production duties and may have wanted to indulge all the ideas that time and money can buy. Despite all the flourishes, however, The Grates are still a pop-punk three-piece where it counts. Nowhere is this more evident than on first single ‘Burn Bridges’, which has a billion hooks including a couple of huge guitar riffs, a marching chant, as well as synthesised trilling flutes. It’s a lot to deal with, but as soon as you get your head around it all, the song has finished. It’s great pop and it works. Elsewhere, the hooks come on as thick and fast, but are less bludgeoning. ‘Carve Your Name’ works slowly into a chorus with a key change that chorus key changes are made of, while ‘Milk Eyes’, with one of two guest appearances (Kori Gardner of Mates of State), has a nice little Casiotone line and blessed-out vibe.

For all its successes, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won does contain some of the annoying by-products of pop rock with crossover appeal. Patience Hodgson’s voice is slightly grating (…) in its admittedly powerful, but American Generic quality. Occasionally she sounds Aussie in a way that Missy Higgins made cringingly appropriate, but often she blurs her ‘u’s and her ‘yu’s, as in ‘[I noo you]’, which should really be ‘[I nyu you]’. Also, a sentimental inkling in some songs (‘Two Kinds of Right’, ‘The Fun in Every Start’) threatens the overall kooky aesthetic. The Grates themselves have said that their music is not meant to be taken any other way than as a bit of fun, but rarely, there is an ingenuousness that threatens this. It’s usually the other way around.

In their chosen mode of fun pop, The Grates would seem a perfect candidate for the new breed of singles bands; all but predicted by the contemporary music industry’s woes. It is most surprising then that Teeth Lost, Hearts Won is an album of consistent quality; never overstaying its welcome and managing enough dynamic variation to work through its 13tracks without much filler. The boozy country of ‘Not Today’ and the Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins guitars of ‘Two Kinds of Right’ are great examples of this. Brevity certainly helps: only one track exceeds four minutes, most are under three. By the time ‘The Biggest and Longest Adventure Ever’ clocks in at track 13, leading Teeth Lost, Hearts Won to its sweet conclusion – with each Grate taking a sentence each in a fitting lullaby – the record has sufficiently proved that pop doesn’t have to be dumb or too dumbed down to work as charming and engaging fun.