[1][2] Recorded over 15 days at Liddiard's home studio in Nagambie, the largely-improvised album features lyrics from his uncle Ian Duhig, in addition to a Will Oldham cover and a reworking of a track by The Drones.
[3] Springtime was conceived in early 2021 during the COVID-19 lockdown in Australia, shortly after Liddiard had finished recording Tropical Fuck Storm's third album Deep States.
"[4] His help was sought due to the fact that Liddiard "didn’t have a huge amount of lyrics in the spare parts department" having recently finished recording Deep States: "So I thought, ‘Fuck, what am I gonna do?
"[4] Abrahams plays a 400kg Steinway & Sons grand piano worth $100,000 on the album that the trio had "scored" off of a rich neighbour of theirs who needed a place to store it whilst shifting house.
[10] Sharon O'Connell of Uncut writes that the album's tracks are shaped by the "[c]ircumstantial urgency" of its recording, finding that they combine art rock, free improvisation, "effects and electronic noise, with deep space and unorthodox mixing a feature (at times, it sounds like White’s brush work is coming from half a mile away).
"[9] Mosi Reeves of The Wire described the music as "free, but never carefree, full of spontaneity, acidity and momentum, sputtering in a thousand different, noisy directions at once.
"[12] According to the press release written by David Yow of The Jesus Lizard-fame, the album "is so full of strange wanderings that are broken and piled up on themselves that the heads have no idea where their tails are, [...] These three gentlemen work, play and improvise together in an emotionally volatile universe.
"[13] The opening track and single "Will to Power" has been described as a "a vexing and visceral cut of alt-rock fused with elements of free jazz, the soundscape growing more cluttered and intense as Liddiard takes aim at the likes of “con men, con jobs, moralisers, modern saviours, agonisers, snake oil pundits, mass psychosis, ism schism [and] hocus pocus”.
[9] "Jeannie In A Bottle", the second of two tracks to utilise Duhig's poetry, features vocals from Liddiard's partner and Tropical Fuck Storm-bandmate Fiona Kitschin on its choruses that are sung in a falsetto.
[1][14] Both videos were directed by Matt McGuigan[1][14] and the former features shots of the band performing interspersed with clips from the 1922 silent horror film Häxan.
"[12] Frank Sawatzki of Musikexpress similarly praised the album for its ability to create "another rock narrative fueled by melancholy and trauma, but one that repeatedly falls into non-rock worlds".
"The relative anonymity of this project will probably see it overlooked," Jolly concludes, "but this song deserves to sit with Shark Fin Blues at the very top of Liddiard’s enviable canon.