Somewhere in America right now, there are four dads playing a cover of BAD COMPANY's "Ready for Love." They are outside a clapboard shed, on a summer evening, about four or five beers into a holiday barbeque.  At least two of the dads in the band are wearing khaki cargo shorts and pastel-covered polo shirts, tucked in and secured with a brown, weaved belt. One of the dads looks like he's still "into it" by virtue of the fact that he's wearing an old RUSH t-shirt and has an earring.  He, of course, would be the singer and the guy who got the band together in the first place. As the song ends, they go right into "Sweet Home Alabama," which gets his co-workers, Susan and Corriene, who work at the front office, up and on their feet before the first measure even comes to a finish.  They stop early because Roger, the drummer, has back pain.  They aren't too concerned as all of them have at least 8 beers a piece and are still fine because they've had 8 beers a piece together for thirty years. They stand in a small circle after the show, holding red Dixie cups filled with Natty Light from the keg, and talk about what a great time they had, and that they should continue doing it, and Roger says "Hey!  We should write our own songs!"

And, from this, a KORITINI-like band is born. I say "KORITINI-like" because these guys are no spring chickens, as they say. They've been kicking around since 2006, and "Long Overdue" is their seventh full-length album. This is music that has ridden the current of album-oriented rock out into the farthest reaches of the ocean. In some circles, one might call it a 'timeless' sound.  The dozen songs on this album are steeped in the '70s worship of bands like BAD COMPANY, MONTROSE, FOREIGNER with a smattering of VAN HALEN and AC/DC thrown in there for good measure. In other words, this is big, swaggering, well-hung cock rock.  The album is chockful (cockful?) of mid-tempo rockers featuring soaring vocals and blues-inspired leads that feature lyrics about euphemisms for having sex.

Lex Koritini must have some sort of legacy standing within the culture of Australian rock and roll. Before KORITINI, he led the short lived band GREEN DOLLAR COLOUR, who released an album seventeen years ago that pretty much sounds like, well, "Long Overdue."  There's a lot to be said for this kind of consistency, and there are plenty of fifty and sixty plus year old men (and some of their wives) who've made a musical tapestry of only listening to bands from the seventies.  You know, back when people made real music. KORITINI is the living embodiment of this population of roofers, highwaymen, transmission specialists and backline cooks. In other words, you're either gonna love it or hate it.  There's not much wiggle room when it comes to such a hyper-specific type of distinction.

Case in point: Their song "Bone For You" starts off with Koritini calling his dog Max, who can be heard growling in the background.  So right off, you know the bone, of course, must be for his dog. He even lays this out, quite clearly, in the lyrics. "Advertise your need for exercise," Lee shouts at his dog Max, teasing him as he whips out the bone.  "You know you want it so bad!"  The justification for this is that "every dog needs a thing to chew" and this is why he's "got a bone for you."  Max clearly needs to get his mouth around that bone, as he desperately leaps around his alpha-male, begging for it.  At one point, Koritini mentions that every inch needs a scratch or two, and I immediately have flashbacks to VAN HALEN-era Sammy Hagar in sunglasses, sunbleached hair and a neon t-shirt moaning, "hello bay-bay!"  In some ways, it's face-palm lyric writing; however, these kind of thinly veiled sexual metaphors were the bread and butter of 1970's cock-rock.  It isn't 1974 though, and in 2023 these lyrics, as the kids would say, are totally cringe.

The rest of the album continues in this vein, and there's no getting around it.  Each song runs into the next, like a string of forgettable girlfriends.  The album is confidently produced, and the harmonies on the choruses can be impeccable, but even this acts counter-productive to the grit KORITINI is trying to portray. Album-oriented rock has always lingered on the periphery of popular rock music, which means it is the fringe of the fringe.  There's probably a reason for this: while the dads of the world are firmly and confidently stuck in the '70s and '80s, the rest of the world has moved on without them.  And this makes them dig their feet in even deeper. While, I'm sure there's some sort of sexual metaphor I could throw in here to bring this review to a close, at the moment I'm finding myself limp with ideas.