Good Citizens (LP)

Following on from 2016's hugely acclaimed One Of Us, Good Citizens raises the stakes and signals the ascent of Cash Savage and the Last Drinks as one of the heavy hitters of Australian music's new era.

An incandescent live band at the height of their powers, led by mighty frontwoman Cash Savage, whose potent lyrics and impassioned delivery articulate the personal-political issues of these times with all her heart, guts and grit. Having towered over festival audiences at Golden Plains, Boogie and Sydney Festival, selling out The Corner in her hometown of Melbourne, and earning rave reviews for her recent packed-out Sydney show: ("You'd be hard-pressed to find a more exhilarating and heart-swelling live band in this country"- The Music), Cash Savage and the Last Drinks are on a mighty roll. The band has also made serious inroads in Europe, playing to huge crowds at festivals such as Binic Festival (France), Rock For People and Colours Festival (both in Czech Republic).

Good Citizens begins and ends with a thought. "I'm thinking violence is the answer", Cash Savage sings as the Last Drinks rally behind her.

Of course, it's just a thought. And this is just a song. But the music Cash Savage is making is informed by real life - her own, and those of the people for whom violence, or the threat of violence, is inescapably real. The human beings who are called minorities and treated as though their lives matter less than others. The women and children on whom domestic violence is enacted, and those in the LGBTIQ+ community for whom violence is an implied or overt threat behind the rhetoric of "family values" and "good citizens".

The politics of Good Citizens hit home all the harder for their juxtaposition amongst songs that are deeply, passionately, personal. The ache of missing a partner ('February'), the heady highs of falling in love ('Sunday'), and the triumph of knowing that love is indestructible ('Found You'). Even as it peers into the abyss of the anger and brutality that rock our times, Good Citizens burns with a fierce flame of belief in the goodness that may yet prevail.