Beans – Less Louder (Ultra Clear LP Vinyl) Vinyl Record

Less Louder' is the fourth studio album from Geelong / Melbourne, Australia band Beans, fronted by The Murlocs drummer Matt Blach. Written and recorded around the time as its predecessor 'Boots N Cats' (2024), this is that album’s more mellow and laid-back counterpart. Where the first of the two records that Blach set to work on in his DIY garage studio over the pandemic was a drum-driven set of rhythmic garage-psych grooves, 'Less Louder' is a blissed-out, harmony-driven record firmly in the “Sunday Afternoon” category, as Blach puts it.

Drifting through psychedelic pop, surf and doo-wop influences, 'Less Louder' is all breezy, deeply-infectious melody and hazy jangle – foregrounding softer, more acoustic production, more piano and Rhodes, whilst dialling down the distortion and the lysergic psych wig-outs you might expect from a Beans record.

"We went a lot more folky and chill on ‘lockdown sessions 2’", Blach recalls: "Although Less Louder was recorded around the same time as Boots N Cats, as the title intentionally describes, it's a lot more laid-back in comparison. We're pleased to share some different paths and a new intimacy so to speak. There's a change in feel to these songs, with more mellow tones. Lyrically, the songs are based around the time they were written. Some about love, some about loneliness, some about memories, some about sleeping or hiding away."

Like ‘Boots N Cats’, 'Less Louder' was written over that surreal extended limbo period and self-recorded at Blach's home in back in 2021: "It kept me sane and feeling productive to still be writing/recording and achieving something, having that opportunity and time and space really got my tires turning." However, where the first of the two found Blach playing all instruments himself, the full Beans line-up are back in tow here: Blach on songwriting and much of the vocals / guitar / drums duties, whilst backed up by bandmates Jack Kong on guitar, Mitch Rice on keys, Vincent Clementson on bass and Lachie McKiernan on drums. Left undisturbed for a few years, the second and final set of Beans recordings from that era is finally seeing the light of day now, landing mixed by Jesse Williams and mastered by John Lee.