There’s an authentic, honest flavour of Australian rock that appears unable to separate emotion from its environment. The road is more than just tarmac. The horizon isn’t merely a painted background. When one connects the enormous openness of the outback to the tumultuous interiors of the humans traversing it, songs such as Rob Fletcher’s ‘Hells Gate’ appear in their place.
A show stopping moment from the Australian musician’s 2022 debut Love Storm ‘Hells Gate’ transforms seemingly simple experiences like driving a Kenworth B-double through the Australian countryside in New South Wales into a quietly existential meditation. Inspired by his own uncomfortable sensation of simultaneous horror and curiosity about it. ‘Hells Gate’ is about the inescapable feeling that regardless of where one’s travels might take them, certain heavy cargo always rides along.
Fletcher seems perfectly happy not to overwhelm us. The opening notes are created from guitar figures which have been played through pitch shifted pedals and feel distorted almost as if it were dissolving and emerging into a more expansive, ping pong-echoey wall of layered shimmering tones.
“Hells Gate’ has a perfectly charming homemade sound; but that is exactly where its success derives from. Where others are polished until pristine, the track lets the sonic textures breathe as well as conveying emotion in such a spacey yet focused manner. He writes with that particular skill of Australia’s great exponents of spacious alternative rock, sounding, in the more melancholic moments, not unlike the grandeur that early, live Icehouse captured, but in an emotional sense, with stuff from Jeff Buckley coming to mind; although ‘Hells Gate’ never comes off as anything other than distinctively Fletcher with his calm, conversational tone feeling less like a performance than it does reflective contemplation, making the eventual arrival of emotional catharsis genuinely potent.
This contemplation of the folly of thought processes that suggest a clean break is something fundamental to ‘Hells Gate’; the notion that merely leaving things behind will bring about a fresh beginning is challenged on the basis that running from fear makes dealing with it ever more difficult. It brings together so many of Fletcher’s strengths: the quality of songwriting, the textures within his guitar work, his capacity to uncover genuine meaning in everyday life circumstances; and his fearless, adventurous embrace of creative freedom; rather than seeking a polished commercial edge.
‘Hells Gate’ is an atmospheric, intimate piece of Australian alt-rock that stays with the listener for many days after its echoes finally fade away into the stillness.
Follow Rob Fletcher
About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
