The new releases, available via DRW Entertainment, even come with a press release, which is the true indication of TISM’s return. It’s about 900 words of invective from vocalist Ron Hitler-Barassi titled The Right Wing Guide to Pleasuring, which references a suite of conservative politicians including Craig Kelly, Tim Smith and Tim Wilson. It feels familiar not just because the outrageously costumed collective have been insulting public figures since the early 1980s, but how it suggests that TISM’s balaclava-clad broadsides were the precursor of online techniques such as trolling, shitposting, and mockery by meme. They were very online before the internet even existed.

The question of who was actually performing as Ron Hitler-Barassi or keyboardist Eugene de la Hot-Croix Bun was once the subject of rampant speculation that ran the gamut from academics to VFL players (TISM’s songbook is rife with vintage footy references). Songwriting credits on publishing databases provided surnames, and it’s no longer a secret that Hitler-Barassi is Peter Minack, while Hot-Croix Bun is Eugene Cester (his nephews Nic and Chris formed Jet). Damian Cowell, AKA drummer and vocalist Humphrey B. Flaubert, has a productive and entertaining solo career, and readily acknowledges TISM.

TISM became a Melbourne institution, lunatics who ran the asylum for so long that reality actually bent to them. They’ve outlasted all the critically esteemed figures they set out to denigrate, with the notable exception of Nick Cave, and now totems from their early years, such as their 1990 book The TISM Guide to Little Aesthetics, which has certain names blacked out by hand due to legal advice, is a collectable. If band members co-operated, a TISM documentary could potentially be hilarious, especially if they have footage of early shenanigans such as starting a lawnmower in the Triple R studio during an interview.

They even enjoyed commercial success. In 1995 their third album Machiavelli and the Four Seasons cracked the national top 10, with the singles (He’ll Never Be An) Ol’ Man River and Greg! The Stop Sign!! equally prominent in Triple J’s Hottest 110. That era’s militant techno-boogie, like all of TISM’s output, was made for mosh-pit friendly live performance. My wife’s TISM story is that at a Collingwood Town Hall gig she copped an accidental elbow to the face, bloodily shifting her top tooth back. It’s still there, slightly askew but unique. Just like TISM.