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Tasmania’s Ivy St have just launched their second album Picture Machine, a grinding swagger of a record that recalls the best of post-punk and its jagged rhythms and glorious repetition.

First track Instruments is just that, an instrumental introduction to the bands approach and aesthetic. Minimal and repetitive it features a looped bass and guitar that circles like a hungry vulture before landing with a slow drum crash in the final minute.

The rhythm section is a defining element in Ivy St’s sound make-up. It locks down the music as the best examples of post-punk always do (I’m thinking Gang Of Four, Fugazi, PiL). The bass has that serrated edge that adds a threatening tone while the drums stagger and dance, providing the percussive colour. Families Form Gangs is a perfect example.

Lyrically, Thomas Hyland takes the intellectual high road with tales of dysfunctional families, glasses of blood and forged documents and he delivers it all in a half-sung, shouty manner. It adds to the frantic, wired and unhinged feel of Picture Machine.

You’re Not A Lawyer pulls things back from the brink and has shades of Neil Young’s more discordant guitar and the feel of The Drones in the vocals and the cloud of desperation that hangs over the song. Australian indie bands like Bluebottle Kiss also hover in the background of I Don’t Read.

The artwork is also worth a mention with its still life of birds in some kind of museum display, reminiscent of Interpol’s last album.

Other bands like My Disco are also doing great things in this area of mechanical post punk guitar music but Ivy St invest a little more human emotion and release of tension in their sound. Sonic Youth is a touchstone as is Fugazi and some instrumental phrasings and dynamics from Jesus Lizard. It all adds up to an impressive record from a band who have developed a fantastic sense of space and time.

Picture Machine is out now via Wireless Records.