Who are the Sand Pebbles? And, more importantly, why aren’t they being properly touted as one of the rising stars in music in 2004? It starts right here, right now.

Opening with a locked-groove similar to that found on the new wilco album A Ghost is Born, the thematically-similarly titled Ghost Transmissions could well see the Sand Pebbles touted as the Antipodean collective most similar to said band – both records sound like live albums recorded off the back of a haze of amphetamines and uppers and downers, reflectively coaxing guitar passages throughout. With the Sand Pebbles, it’s the cheaper street variety: the sound of Ghost Transmissions is gritty, dirty and occasionally harsh.

Of course it’s not a brilliantly recorded as wilco’s recent effort, and the vocals of frontman Andrew Tanner could be a little higher in the mix rather than muddied alongside the instrumentation, but it still works. What’s most apparently about Ghost Transmissions is that sonic whiz-kid Murray Ono’s permanent addition to the line-up has given the band a totally new sound that finds them experimenting with electronica on “Ripple”, then flowing and drifting on the twelve-minute rock epic “Black Sun Ensemble”, which is every bit as specials as “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” on A Ghost is Born.

There’s a musical freedom apparent throughout Ghost Transmissions that can’t help but excite music fans. The hazy “Ghost Girl” is gorgeous, with Tanner really singing ‘out’ – it finds him pushing his voice as a main focus of the sound rather than letting it simply drift along with the instrumentation. Like the Meat Puppets before them, the Sand Pebbles touch on elements of country and experimental soundscapes and pull it off in grand scale. It is the very essence of ‘punk’ – operating outside the status quo and delivering something that’s strikingly different to everything else out there.

That the Sand Pebbles can achieve something so special on only their second full-length album bodes well for the future. More tightly honed than the wild and woolly debut Eastern Terrace, Ghost Transmissions even manages to include a potential hit single with the most excellent closer “All My Life (I Love You)”. If ever there was any indication that original, exciting and invigorating music is actually alive and kicking in 2004, the Sand Pebbles are it.

- Andrew Weaver