Surprise Chef – “Leg Day”

Surprise Chef have no lyrics to hide behind on “Leg Day.” Good. They'd only get in the way. For nearly five minutes, the Melbourne quartet simply cook, taking the kind of instrumental track that could politely decorate a room and giving it enough funk, tension and personality to become the reason you’re in it.

"Leg Day” is the first taste of Frogs In A Pond, Surprise Chef’s fifth album and their first for Concord Jazz, arriving October 23. The band built the record as a 40-minute suite inspired by Italian giallo cinema and the work of ‘60s and ‘70s film composers including Piero Umiliani and Piero Piccioni. Their stated ambition was basically to make the soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist.

Which explains why “Leg Day” feels so visual without ever needing to tell you what you’re looking at. Bass, drums, keys and guitar keep passing the spotlight around, the arrangement getting knottier and more satisfying as it goes. Surprise Chef recorded Frogs In A Pond almost entirely live during a continuous nine-day session, working within the limitations of an eight-track tape recorder, and you can hear that human interplay here. This isn’t four guys stacking immaculate parts until Pro Tools cries uncle. It sounds like four people in a room who know exactly what everyone else is about to do.

And bless them for giving the thing 4:55 to actually happen. In an era of songs seemingly engineered to finish before you’ve located the volume button, “Leg Day” settles in. It develops. It earns the quads. No chorus coming to rescue you. No vocalist arriving to explain the plot. Just a straight-up track, served hot and imported from Australia.