“This album is a culmination of all of our influences and experiences right now. Everything has been written, rewritten, rearranged, edited, sometimes rerecorded and then mixed and sometimes remixed, not because it was wrong, but because we wanted to get it really right. On this album the band has more of a sound, the way Battles or Hella or Deerhoof have a sound. The music on DANAÏDES has more repetitive beats and melodies, like dance music in some parts. There are electronic beats, and layers of guitars that sound like synths and actual synths and weird percussion and fun stuff...we really played around in the studio.”
The Alcohotlicks are:
This is one intelligent, obfuscating, revved-up release. These men play with repetition, they play sound, with effects and with a form that lends itself to taking things just about as far as you can go. Via Ben Hauptmann, Aaron Flower and Evan Mannell, this is most clearly exemplified on Wrong Way Up - an academic exercise as much as it is a composition. This track tested my limits, though as with any condition of tension, a release of the musical valve is followed by pleasure and relief This is Yes and Zappa in a minimalist setting, with a bit of Goldfrapp thrown in. Through a cosmic jive, there are moments that may make you want to consider the value in an album that makes you feel crippled by the quality of its layered simplicity. Arne Sjostedt - SMH Oct 2012
Sydney three piece The Alcohotlicks – comprised of drummer Evan Mannel and guitarists Aaron Flower and Ben Hauptmann – have created Danaïdes: a stunning musical statement with hypnotic pulses, angular guitar duels and some heavy riffage. They navigate sonic territory with the audacity of Battles, the swagger of Soundgarden and the destructive desperation of Alice in Chains and as the album progresses, so is the listener drawn down an emotive spiral where one can only absorb the delicate moments with the uneasy knowledge that it’s only temporary- and things will come crashing down in a brutal cascade at any moment. Exquisite. - Imran Shahid 25/09/12
Sydney trio The Alcohotlicks are Ben Hauptman and Aaron Flower on guitar and Evan Mannell on drums. Danaides sees the three further experiment with an electronic sound as they adapt synths and samples into their music. The result is a wild and contemporary jazz/grunge rock/80′s electro creation, cool stuff! - The New Thing 17/09/12
The Alcohotlicks are being lauded as ascendant, genre-transcendent renaissance renegades with no eye for limitations and no reverence for the stringent conventions that keep musicians and their creations in check. Are they jazz? Are they rock? Are they grunge? These seem to be penetrating questions for fan and reviewer alike. The answer is yes! The Alcohotlicks have taken the paradigms and commandments of traditional jazz and turned them inwards to produce frenetic and relentless contemporary jazz that traverses the borders of everything from the lullaby to psychedelic country funk. Accept that there is no particular category to latch onto here. In place of classification is an innate and instinctual understanding of sound and how all the broken edges can fit together. The Alcohotlicks honour music in the same way the Dirty Three do: by fusing it all seamlessly together into a Frankensteinian explosion of righteous awesome. - PAULIE STONE, RAVE MAGAZINE
"It's hard not to like The Alcohotlicks. There's an audaciousness in the line-up of two guitars and drums; a swagger as they maraud through country, rock, surf and funk like three jazz Vikings, pillaging what they like." - JOHN SHAND, SMH
"The Alcohotlicks ware loaded with surprise irreverence and the depreveties of hard rock." - SMH
"...Evan, Ben and Aaron have created music that is not only fresh and brilliant, but uniquely Australian." - JAMES MULLER
"These guys are crazy!" - JIM BLACK