Australian Crawl – Semantics

My copy says "SEMANATICS" on the spine of the sleeve, but spelled correctly elsewhere.

classic album and great pressing... one of my fav Eps of all time... classic

Though they were huge stars in their homeland of Australia, Australian Crawl could not get arrested outside the land down under. Capitol Records had previously released their third album, "Sons Of Beaches", stateside, but the album sunk without trace. When the band scored big in Oz with their "Semantics" EP, the U.S. labels got interested again, with Geffen winning the rights to release it in the states. Instead of an EP, though, Geffen released an expanded version of "Semantics" featuring the EP's four original tracks plus re-recorded versions of six Crawl classics! Though drummer John Watson had replaced original member Bill McDonough, the band's power had not diminished and some of the re-recordings actually bettered the originals, especially "The Boys Light Up", which actually garnered some airplay on adventurous radio stations. Of the new tracks, the gorgeous ballad "Reckless (Don't Be So)" turned into one of the band's most popular songs (in fact, vocalist James Reyne even re-recorded it for one of his US solo albums). Shortly after the release of this album, guitarist/co-vocalist Guy McDonough died of a rumored heroin overdose. This LP was (and remains) a great introduction to one of Australia's finest homegrown talents.