Midnight Oil is back with their final album “Resist” their thirteenth album which is a follow up to their last album from two years ago “The Makarrata Project” as they recorded over twenty songs before the pandemic. This is great because bassist/backup vocalist Bones Hillman was able to record on both albums before he passed away from cancer. This is a great makeup for that previous album which wasn’t very good and way too political, it was all meant for charity but for very specific kinds for indigenous people even with chants, but that album wasn’t what we had come to expect from Midnight Oil.
On ‘Resist” they have a great balance of songs that rock out from start to end and songs that have a mixture of acoustic quiet mellow parts to it. There are also a few songs with interesting musical breakdowns in the middle that could be two distinct and separate songs each containing a unique and different sound.
The songs that rock out do have political messages blended in about climate change, the government and all the troubles in the world, but Peter Garrett and crew do a good job of blending rock music with good impactful lyrics. Songs like “Rising Seas” (opening track that starts out preaching right away), “At the Time of Writing”(which is super catchy) is one of the best songs on the album, “Undercover”(has that 80/90s grunge sound with great keyboard) and “Last Frontier”(has cool nature sound effects with some narration), these are songs that rock out completely. While songs “Tarkine” (great vocals), “Reef” (good acoustic work) and “Lost at Sea” (groovy, good music especially the bass work/the keyboard) have a great blend of up tempo/or mellow-but rocks out.
There are good songs that are on the quieter song like “To the Ends of the Earth” (It has a an interesting sound to it) and “We Resist” which is a very passionate political message that uses the album name “Resist” in it. While there are three songs that have a musical breakdown and some turn into another song in the second half. “The Barka-Darling River” starts out with a heavy grunge rock feel then the keyboard breakdown takes it to a quieter acoustic track. “Nobody’s Child” has a very 80’s keyboard/synthesizer vibe to it but then also has an interesting musical breakdown, and lastly “We are not Afraid” has good elements of acoustic guitar, good harmonizing, with another musical breakdown with a cello involved.
If this truly the end for Midnight Oil when it comes to new music/touring then they went out with a bang because there are no bad songs on this album. Some songs have political elements because that’s who they are, which just adds another good edition to their discography. It is a nice journey listening to the album from start to end because of all the moods it goes through and you get a rock album out of a legendary rock band. We all should be resisting the bad world we live in and try to make changes like Garrett, Hillman, Rob Hirst, Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie have been trying to do for almost fifty years.