Kamikaze was Rhubarb’s debut album, recorded in a 10 day marathon stint at Brisbane’s Sunshine Studios.
It’s packed with great guitar pop tunes like Zero, Holiday and Want Me Back, and songs ranging in style from the acoustic guitars and string quartet of Do Do Do to the gorgeous Beatles-circa-Revolver melody of Lead Me.
Zero you might have heard on Triple J, since it was the song that led to Rhubarb being named one of that station’s Brisbane Unearthed winners last month, but this version, recorded before the Triple J session, is even better.
If you were looking for somewhere to place Rhubarb, it’s somewhere in that British melodic tradition passed down from The Beatles to XTC to the present day, but this is a band with a sound and personality of its own.