More Clouds Coming To U.S. Air

For the past couple of years the Clouds have hovered just over the American horizon. They’ve been packing houses in Australia since 1990, when they released their debut EP and began opening for headliners doing gigs in Sydney. Since then they’ve topped the Aussie alt-rock chart with two albums, “Penny Century” and “Thunderhead,” and headlined on the Big Day Out tour, their home-grown version of Lollapalooza.

It wasn’t until the summer of ‘95 that “Thunderhead” broke into American college radio playlists. Their pop sensibility made listening to them easy on the ears, with strong melodic and rhythmic hooks that gave their tunes a longer than usual afterlife. There was a tough edge to their keening guitars and emphatic rhythms, but the interplay of guitarist Jodie Phillis’ and bassist Patricia Young’s voices broadened the impact of the beat.

If you missed “Thunderhead,” you can wait for their next album, “Futura,” which hit stores in Australia last October and will likely be available on Ichiban in the U.S. later this year. Or you can catch up on the Clouds catalog with “Collage,” a collection of old and new tracks.

Aside from the sound of the band itself, Patricia Young suggests that the album may jostle a few Stateside preconceptions. “I think there’s a feeling that not so many women are involved in Australian music,” she muses. “Bands that have come out of Australia and made any sort of international mark, like Silverchair or You Am I, are all boys. Perhaps when people hear that we’re two girl singers from Australia, they might expect us to sound more pop than we actually do.”