This is it, folks, a brand-new Angels album is on the way, a remarkable new record that sits comfortably in the legendary band’s classic catalogue.
Ninety Nine – The Angels’ first studio album in 10 years – coincides with the 50 Not Out tour, celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary. As the book The 100 Best Australian Albums declared, “The Angels can lay claim to being Australia’s longest-lasting band.”
Most bands would mark a major milestone with a victory lap, content to trade on past glories. Not The Angels. When thinking about how they should mark their 50th birthday, they decided: “Why don’t we go for broke?”
Ninety Nine is classic Angels, from the intriguing title to the cover artwork, which depicts Rick Brewster’s predilection for collecting old phone boxes. Then there’s the songs, filled with mystery and menace and riffs that are a rallying cry to rock fans around the world.
The record rages with the energy of a new band just starting out. “There was a lot of spontaneity with this album,” John Brewster points out. “If someone had an idea, we recorded it.”
Introducing the album is the hard-hitting first single – Ninety Nine (Go For Broke), an opening salvo that’s both an instant Angels classic and a savage statement on the state of the world. “It refers to the fact that 99 per cent of us have to accept our lot, while the one per cent take the lion’s share,” explains singer Nick Norton, who wrote the song with bass player Sam Brewster. “The super-rich are richer than they’ve ever been.”
