What if Homer’s Odyssey was set in an apocalyptic post-civil war Australia?
The Holy Rollercoasters’ Andrew Garton and Jimi Beavis imagined exactly that with their futuristic indie soul retelling of the classic poem.
In the opening act our protagonist’s wife Penelope expounds her heartache (‘When You Coming Home?’) and their son Telemachus (‘Not Another Word From You’), his teenage angst over an absent father. Finally Otis (our Odysseus), prepares to leave his temporary love and head home (‘Tears, Heartache and Sighs’).
Act II recounts Otis’ sorry tales of absence, with ‘Eat The Lotus’’ psychedelic misdeeds, the underworld and morbid exploits of minimalist gospel-blues in ‘Hold On, Don’t Let Go’, and seafaring terrors in the kaleidoscopic instrumental ‘Sirens, Perils and Pleasures’.
In Act III, after Otis partakes of advice-in-60s-soul-song from his first trustworthy friends (‘Hear What The Heart Has To Say’); begins the final leg of his journey with Waitsian sadness, where he reunites with his son (‘The Worst Years Of My Life’), violently confronts the people who have been pilfering his home in his absence in the spoken word hip-hop punk of ‘Blood In The Dust’ and finally reconciles with Penelope with the jazz/soul of ‘Let the Olive Branches Sway’. And we conclude with the slight hint that human nature dictates this could happen all over again…
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