''Using My Gills as a Roadmap'' is the seventh album by Australian rock band

Died Pretty Died Pretty, sometimes The Died Pretty, is an Australian alternative rock band founded by mainstays Ron Peno (lead singer) and Brett Myers (lead guitarist and backing vocalist) in Sydney in 1983. The band was briefly called Final Solution. Thei ...

. The album, their second working with producer

Wayne Connolly Wayne Paul Connolly is an Australian musician, record producer and audio engineer. From 1991 to 1997 Connolly provided lead guitar and vocals in guitar pop group the Welcome Mat, with whom he released two studio albums. In 1994, he formed Knie ...

, was released in 1998. Guitarist and co-songwriter Brett Myers said the album marked a return to more experimental work, with little concern about the potential for radio airplay. "We all made a conscious decision to do something different with this album that we hadn't done before," he said. "We wanted to make songs that didn't have such rigid structures and to get away from the pop groove we'd fallen into a bit in the past." He said the album was also the one the band had taken most charge of in the production process. "It's a hell of a lot more work—we couldn't lounge around and relax as much. In the end, it's ultimately more rewarding, though. With the stuff on this album, we were so secure with what we wanted to do. I knew the sounds I wanted to create, I had a good idea about what I wanted to get. We ended up writing the songs around the sounds. We listened to lots of late '70s music like Bowie's '' Low'' and '' "Heroes"''—especially the second sides, with the really long instrumental passages. We even listened to some of the psychedelic trance that's around at the moment." Myers said that with the ideas firmly in their minds, the recording process was very quick and most of the album was completed in just two weekends. "It all just fell into place." He said the first single, "Radio", was more similar to the band's earlier material, but said: "The song makes sense in the context of the album. It's a good mid-point, it sort of serves as a cross-over from what we used to do, to now. I think it's a good bridge."Kerry Taylor, "The band that never died," ''The Age'', 15 May 1998.

Track listing

(All songs by Brett Myers and

Ron Peno Ronald "Ron" Stephen Peno (born mid 1950s), who also performed as Ronnie Pop, is an Australian rock singer, he fronted Died Pretty, from 1984 to 2002, he was a member of early punk band the Hellcats (1976–77), and followed with the 31st (in ...

) # "Slide Song" – 3:59 # "She Was" – 5:36 # "Stay" – 5:01 # "The Daddy Act" – 6:12 # "Paint It Black, You Devils" – 6:24 # "Radio" – 4:22 # "Gone" – 6:05 # "Away" – 6:03 # "Drive" – 3:39

Personnel

* Ron Peno — vocals * Brett Myers — guitar * John Hoey — keyboards * Robert Warren — bass * Simon Cox — drums

References

{{Authority control 1998 albums Died Pretty albums