The Missing Links

Recorded by the second line-up of Sydney’s The Missing Links (bearing no resemblance to the initial line-up that made their debut single “We 2 Should Live”), 1965’s The Missing Links was the only album from Australia’s greatest and most out-there garage rock gang. The sextet’s playing was stripped-back to the point of puritanical zeal; a number of livewire R&B numbers like “Hobo Man” do the deed with impressive vitality, but the real joy is in a clutch of proto-punk killers, like “Wild About You” – it’s no surprise that Brisbane punks The Saints covered this song on their debut – and the wild harnessing of feedback and fuzz on “Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut”, which latter appears, backwards, as “H’tuom Tuhs”. A revelation.