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Music

Brisbane’s Thigh Master Walk Us Through Their New Album ‘Early Times’

Vocalist Matthew Ford gives us a play-by play of their debut album.

Much of Thigh Master's​ long-awaited debut album Early Times is about Brisbane. Here are songs about living and playing music in a mid-sized Australian city. Tales about cynicism, paranoia, share-houses and having to deal with aggressive skaters in pubs in New Farm.

Since forming in 2012, the band have teasingly released a few singles and EPS, and gone through a couple of line-up changes. But the scrappy and busted guitar pop and vocalist Matthew Ford's erudite observations remain persistent and consistent. This is emo music for those who drink XXXX Gold mid-morning at the Mansfield Tavern. Early times indeed.

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Take a listen to the album and read a track-by-track explanation from Matthew below.

Ditch
Benzodiazepine and D.Nastis' superb guitarwork.

Rics B.C.
An overview of my first year in Brisbane spent with a friend who held responsibilities quite lightly. Cheeky bastard.

Company
Internal conflict and an ongoing lack of self-assurance inspired this one. Also the general small-city paranoia that other people portray the same pessimistic views you hold on yourself and retreating to isolation as an effect.

Room Doom
A light-hearted dig at fleeting inner city friendships and share housing. Also battling myself at guitar solos.

Canned Opening
We recorded this with the first batch of songs in 2013 but only played it live once until this year because we couldn't play it to save ourselves. Innez popped that hot intro lead on the top just this year.

Hippie View
A quick little ditty I wrote before we started the band- based on the Bohemian paradise that is Brisbane's West End.

Treehouse A.P.
Hot bass hooks from Dan on this one. Love Pat's drumming too. Lyrically it's about people you've had falling outs with inviting themselves into your home after a show and invading your personal space until the early hours of the morning.

Whiplash
This is just a gross emo song with more signature Anastassiou riffage.

Brunno Brawl
One of the earliest TM tracks. Just the original three on this one. Dan and I ended up in an unwanted altercation with some skaters that took too much acid at The Brunswick and decided to harass us for the evening.

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D.D.
This was on the B-side of our first 7" but Patty B insisted on recording an "album" version. The words are a take on the "woe is me" narcissism that most rock dawgs live to obtain.

Baroona
The last song we put together while all four of us still lived in Brisbane. It's one of 3 songs on the album that aren't fueled by sarcasm or social observation.

Hassa Been
This is sort of an intro to Flat City as the lyrics are tied quite closely.  It's based on the common superficial Australian socialite.

Flat City
This was Track 2 on our second 7". We decided to take a lot longer than 15-minutes to record this version though.

'Early Times' is available through Coolin' By Sound(AUS/NZ) andBruit Direct Disques (Rest of World).

Catch Thigh Master at these shows: 

Oct 14 - Adelaide at the Metro
Oct 15 - Melbourne at the Post Office Hotel
Oct 21 - Brisbane at The Foundry
Oct 22 - Sydney at The Union