ALBUM REVIEW: Simon Juliff – Stars

Dog Meat

Released: 02.12.22

Nearly twenty years ago, Simon Juliff and his brother Felix founded The Roys in Melbourne. They recorded an album and a handful of singles for garage rock label In-Fidelity, and swiftly disappeared. Their volatile existence coincided with the rock revival of the early 2000s. Simon never stopped writing songs though.

Stars, his first solo album, uncannily begins where The Roys ended – as if time had stood perfectly still. It was recorded with friends from Hoss and Kim Salmon & the Surrealists – and is released by the newly-resurrected cult label Dog Meat. Simon writes and rewrites the songs he’s always liked, absorbedly retracing his own steps. This is music as recollection, music as fascination – at once sweet and strident, somewhere between the living and the dead.