Columbia/Legacy Recordings

Australia’s Midnight Oil are one of the few truly important acts in Rock and Roll post 1979. This collection from Legacy Recordings is just as important, compiling 36 of the band’s best tunes from their 25 year career. Chosen by the band, Essential Oils includes selections from the band’s dozen albums, as well as their duo of EPs, and plays in chronological order. The order offers a unique perspective on the band to say the least.

Disc One contains all of the band’s pre-mega success material prior to their platinum Diesel and Dust album. This disc is a lot edgier than the later material, ringing out much like early U2 with a passion that most bands never have. The raw post-punk sound of songs like “Cold Cold Change,” “Back on the Borderline,” and “Only the Strong” are perfectly in tune with the closer to New Wave sound of songs like “When the Generals Talk,” the rally cry of “Kosciusko,” and the sailing “Hercules.” The haunting “Armistice Day” is the highlight of this disc though, with its almost bluesy lead guitar work and God-fearing rhythm work topped by the marching, pointed vocals of Garrett. I haven’t heard this song in years and it remains as powerful today than it was during the Reagan-era. Some things haven’t changed.

Disc Two contains the more familiar tunes, a number of them from the smash hit albums Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mining. Both albums are considered the height of the band’s career commercially and one listen to “Beds Are Burning” or “King of the Mountain” or “Blue Sky Mining” or “Forgotten Years,” will reignite your fire to fight injustice. All three are soul-shaking tunes and when they appear alongside lesser known but just as powerful works of the aggressive “Redneck Wonderland” and the brilliant confusion of “White Skin Black Heart,” you find yourself truly longing for this band to reunite. There are no bands left in modern music that bite this hard, sound this intelligent, or play with this much heart.

I’m excited that Essential Oils is here because, unless you grew up in the eighties, it has become too easy to overlook the power of this band. The ferocity of post-punk, the grace of Peter Gabriel, and the sharp tongue of bands like The Alarm and U2 are but a few of the things that make Midnight Oil the stuff legends are made of.  If you are a fan of U2, The Alarm, Living Colour, Life of Agony, or other bands that dig deep beneath their commercial success and yearn to do something more powerful than become rockstars, then you must pick up Essential Oils. You’ll be glad you did.