Serving up eleven tracks of rhythmic garage-psych goodness, Boots N Cats is the third full-length from Melbourne outfit Beans and the first of two albums set for release in 2024. The long-awaited follow-up to 2018s Babble and 2020s All Together Now, its a record that finds Beans frontman (and The Murlocs drummer) Matt Blach putting percussion at centre-stage. Ive always wanted to make a drum-based album, dedicated around the beat first and then everything else follows, Blach says, explaining his desire to explore different production approaches, like hip-hop and crunched drums, and show an admiration and appreciation for the likes of The Meters, Wu-Tang and James Brown as much as the acid-soaked 60s/70s rock youd expect.

What emerges from the beat-first approach on Boots N Cats charts mutant garage-rock boogies (‘Groove’, ‘Silhouette’) and festival tent psychedelia (‘Haunted’, ‘Dreaming Daisy’), by way of blissed-out funk instrumentals (‘One To Four’, ‘Siamese Blundstone’). The line is constantly skirted between a loose, carefree vibe and interesting, meticulous musicianship never falling into the trap of taking itself too seriously. Its a sunny kaleidoscope of chugging guitars, driving basslines, soaring organs and warm, echo-soaked vocals driven always by the tightly-wound rhythms and grooves that Blach has been in pursuit of since he was a kid: The title of the album comes from me learning drums from my dad. He had a background of German heritage and during lessons would jokingly say nein, bootncatsn like a simple 1,2,3,4.