Spike Fuck’s return is vital

Photography by Dylan Marriott How do you begin to dissect an album whose contents are intended to be taken at face value? It’s a tricky challenge for this listener, as a music journalist aiming to treat this work with the respect it deserves. I’m partly swayed by the undeniable mythical quality of who’s responsible: the cult Melburnian creative Spike Fuck. His scarce but deeply cherished output features grotesquely candid, existential art-rock ballads. The magnetic pull of his 2016 EP Smackwave is still as strong as it was upon release. Somewhere along the way, his activity was curtailed by running the gauntlet of heroin addiction, transgender exploration, and religious fascination at separate or simultaneous times, which in turn wrote his peculiar life narrative.However, harping on Spike’s past does a disservice to where he is at present: he’s miraculously alive. His ebb-and-flow career for the better part of ten years has culminated in evidence. The eight-song collection is probably best perceived as a cathartic, triumphant proof-of-life statement, rather than a comeback record decorated with middling bells and whistles. “I find life to be the most intense, vivifying, or life-aff...