The Nature Strip - Domesticated Beast (2024)

Domesticated Beast is the long-awaited fourth full-length from Sydney, Australia’s pop-rock adventurers The Nature Strip. The Nature Strip is led by singer-songwriters Pete Marley and John Encarnação and becomes a full live and recording unit with the talents of Matt Langley and Jess Ciampa.

Domesticated Beast is the group’s first major statement since 2017’s Beetle Bones, by turns power pop, a bit new wave, occasionally a bit folk rock, and other things besides. This album collects most of the singles the group has dropped over the last two years – John’s taut and funky singalong “Surgery”, Pete’s power pop masterclasses “Sixth Sense” and “Prime Time”, and their hard rockin’ collab “I Cannot Deny You”, for which a stunning clip by Luke Bozzetto has just been released.

But there are twelve tracks here, and others include Pete and John’s leftfield collabs “King of Trees” (think pastoral XTC, with a stunning trombone solo by James Greening) and the skewed folk/Americana of “Nerve Endings Fade”. John’s nervy new wave tune “Wavelength” is radio ready, and another earworm is his collab with Lazy Susan/Family Fold star Paul Andrews, “Signature Move”.

As usual, the subject matter gives the listener a lot to chew on: the long gestation of the cicada becomes a metaphor in “Prime Time”, while daft fantasies of power charge “The Royal Cannon”. “King of Trees” imagines life from the perspective of a scarecrow, while the guy in “Monday” has been so ghosted he wonders whether his lover actually exists. “Wavelength” runs a gauntlet from initial fascination through brief domesticity to the end of things in 2:20 while “Nerve Endings Fade” dissolves a relationship and nature, bliss and oblivion.