Melbourne’s psychedelic outlaws Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows spread their wings on the dynamic Inexorable Opposites.
Release date: February 6, 2026 | Magnetic Eye Records | Bandcamp | Instagram
Chances are pretty good that by the time this review is released, my region of the US will still be under a few inches of snow from one of the worse winter storms in recent memory. It’s been amusing thinking of the contrast between the climate here, and the fact that down in Australia, conditions are probably perfect for Melbourne’s Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows to be releasing their fourth album Inexorable Opposites. Dust, sweat, blood, and dry heat just seep right out of the album, and damn, if it wasn’t a nice way to forget the ice and snow for a while.
Being a sucker for all sorts of music evoking the Old West through a different filter (Fields of the Nephilim, Bambara, Sons of Perdition, et al), Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows were a familiar name when they landed on the review list. A friend I trust for great psychedelic music pointed me their way around the release of The Magnetic Ridge, and that proved a personal favorite of mine back in 2021. Five years on, Inexorable Opposites reminds me of everything I loved about that album: pummeling stoner rock riffs, twangy Western guitars, and washes of psychedelia crafting the band’s created world of outlaws with addictions and messiah complexes. And yet, Inexorable Opposites feels more varied, diverse, and emotive, giving even more texture to a sound that already had plenty to hold onto.
Of course, Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows still offer plenty of the riffy crunch one can expect. Opener “Moss” coalesces into punchy riffwork from its trippy intro, while “Venomous” balances meltier verses off some furiously heavy chords and frenetic drumming. The insistent grooving momentum of a track like “Seer” proves dangerously hypnotic on open roads, and even if that was all Inexorable Opposites had to offer, listeners would probably have a great time. We all love some good stoner rock grooving, right? But against my usual expectations, it was the moments where the band stepped a little off the straight rocking path that got me hooked.
The band’s willingness to spread their wings manifests in a couple of different ways, both heavy and soft. In the former case, it was a genuine trip hitting “Junior Fiction” when the band was suddenly launching into tricky syncopations you’d expect more off a Meshuggah album than from some Aussie psych rock. “Mt. Macedon” leans into brighter progressions that feel like some ascent towards the sun, while “On the Overwhelm” is a masterfully crafted build-up from trudging bass and drum verses to a genuinely cathartic crescendo towards its tail end.
More than any other tracks, though, it’s “Dave is Done” and “To Die” where Inexorable Opposites truly peaked for me. The former due to the way it feels like a perfect heavy ballad to mental degradation from a life lived a little too hard; the droning guitars of the verse underpin lyrics of broken memories and recollections, giving way to more intense peaks that hang in my mind well after the album ends. And the latter for just how much it lives up to the rather bold title. The dense heaviness of the rest of the album gives way completely to radiant psychedelia, perhaps feeling the most ’60s psych of the whole album. The vocals, distorted as they were across the rest of the album, suddenly come through clean and clear. “To Die” concludes the album feeling like a shedding of the body and a drift into whatever comes next, providing an excellent emotional cap on the album that caught me a little off guard.
At the risk of sounding dismissive, psychedelic rock isn’t a genre I typically turn to for emotional resonance, but Jack Harlon & the Dead Crows left me very impressed and even a bit affected across Inexorable Opposites. There were plenty of headbanger grooves and scorching riffs to supplant my morning coffee or energy drink, but I was just as (or even moreso) likely to get lost in the album’s deeper, more thoughtful moments. It’s a dynamic album that expands on what I already loved about the band, and every experiment lands perfectly. Chalk Inexorable Opposites up as another success for these Aussie outlaws; this is one dusty trail well worth hitting.
