Review – Billy Geary
The meteoric rise of Dead Letter Circus in the past 18 months is no secret. Having quickly moved from the small, intimate feel of the Espy to regularly selling out the substantially bigger HiFi Bar and touring the UK and America, its fair to say that DLC are doing all right. Back in Melbourne for yet another jaunt around Australia, this time for their “No Fracking Way” Tour, Brisbane alternative rock darlings Dead Letter Circus were at the top of their game on Wednesday night.
Continue reading Live Review | Dead Letter Circus + Closure in Moscow + Wolves @ The Hi-Fi Bar, Melbourne – 24 August 2011
Category Archives: Review
EP Review | The Ivys – In The Company Of Wolves
By Chantelle Sievers
The Ivys have set the bar high for themselves, with a reputation for amazing live shows, supporting big names like Keane, and releasing a well received debut EP. Their long-awaited new EP, “In The Company Of Wolves” demonstrates that they still have plenty to offer.
This is a solid collection of new tracks with a more complex and mature sound. Luke Hannaford’s voice soars through each song. There are plenty of riffs not thrown in but cleverly worked in, so no track gets dull at all.
Continue reading EP Review | The Ivys – In The Company Of Wolves
Live Review | Indigo Children + Stone Parade @ The Evelyn Hotel, Melbourne with Mama’s Rejects – 29 July 2011
by Billy Geary
The Evelyn Hotel is one of the best smaller scaled venues in Melbourne, with many a band’s careers having kick started at the pub. Even band’s like Muse have played there before they found stardom. Therefore it was the perfect place for some of the country’s better young rock bands to show their wares to a decent sized crowd.
Continue reading Live Review | Indigo Children + Stone Parade @ The Evelyn Hotel, Melbourne with Mama’s Rejects – 29 July 2011
Live Review | Periphery + Tesseract @ The Hi-Fi, Melbourne with Twelve Foot Ninja – 31 July 2011
Review by Billy Geary
On Sunday night in Melbourne; Periphery, Tesseract and Twelve Foot Ninja claimed gig of the year. It’s that simple. Upon arriving 20 minutes before the doors opened, in order to get barrier spots, the line to get in was already stretching 75 metres down Swanston St, causing that idea to be promptly dismissed. To put it in perspective, the other shows on this tour were at venues with capacities of 400-500 people and only Sydney managed to sell out.
The Hifi, a 1200 capacity venue, was forced to turn people away after about 8pm. Not a bad effort for a band on their first headline tour of Australia.
Continue reading Live Review | Periphery + Tesseract @ The Hi-Fi, Melbourne with Twelve Foot Ninja – 31 July 2011
SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS 2011 WRAP UP!
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Splendour In The Grass festival wrapped up at Woodfordia last night after three glorious sundrenched days of music, arts, discussion and sweet times shared with old and new friends.
Splendour took the music to the people for the 11th time, with the 30,000 strong crowd taking in over 90 of the hottest acts that Australia and the world has to offer. |
Live Review | Ball Park Music + Millions + City Riots @ Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane – 23 July 2011
By Chantelle Sievers
It was about time that Ball Park Music headlined their own tour. With presence and personality like theirs it is hard to stay in other bands’ shadows. The sellout crowd at Alhambra Lounge were treated to an exhilarating and upbeat show.
Local band Millions warmed up the crowd with smooth vocals, a steady snare and a nostalgic 90s sound. Concertgoers had their eyes on the band and were nodding along.
Continue reading Live Review | Ball Park Music + Millions + City Riots @ Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane – 23 July 2011
Album Review | Art Brut – Brilliant! Tragic!
Review – Sibel Kutlucan
Brilliant! Tragic! definitely is anything but tragic. It is the fourth album from Berlin-based English and German punk rockers, Art Brut. It is a great 10 track album that promises rather drastic changes which have sparked quite a few heated discussions since its release in May this year. Art Brut as always promise a contagious concoction of strong gutsy instruments and cheeky punk vocals which are prominent throughout the entirety of the album, with some tweaks here and there.
Continue reading Album Review | Art Brut – Brilliant! Tragic!
Album Review | The Elected – Bury Me In My Rings
by Sibel Kutlucan
Jeeze, where have The Elected been all my life! I was shocked that the band managed to produce two albums previously without me realising, however I’m glad to have been introduced to them with their third album, Bury Me In My Rings, which released earlier this year (may 17th) truly is a fantastic indie rock gem. After listening to the first minute or so of the album’s opener “Born to love you”, the LA based indie-rock band had me captivated and I am pleased to say that the album only got better.
“Babyface”; listen to it! If you only have to listen to one song off the album I would recommend this one (the second track), although you would be doing yourself an injustice to only stop here.
Continue reading Album Review | The Elected – Bury Me In My Rings
Dan Sultan @ Old Museum, Brisbane – 19 July 2011 | Live Review
Review: Lauren Sherritt
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The night of the nineteenth of July was a cold one in Brisbane, but the crowd heading to Dan Sultan’s sold out show at the Old Museum knew that things would soon heat up for them. The charismatic singer has a reputation for putting on a pretty fantastic show, and the scores of fans were counting on him making the trek out into the cold worthwhile. |
Continue reading Dan Sultan @ Old Museum, Brisbane – 19 July 2011 | Live Review
Art vs. Science @ The Tivoli, Brisbane on 9 July 2011 with Strange Talk – Live Review
Review: Lauren Sherritt
 [Photo: Stuart Blythe] |
It has become a well known fact that New South Wales band Art vs. Science do not put on any ordinary live show. What they create is more than music, what they do is more than mere entertainment, and the allure of their act has had them selling out venues nationwide on their recent ‘The Experiment’ tour. As expected, their concluding performance at The Tivoli in Brisbane was an evening of riotous fun, insane dancing and marvellous spectacle. |
Sleeping With Sirens – “Let’s Cheers To This”
Review by: Sibel Kutlucan
Wow! It is fair to say with Let’s Cheers To This, Sleeping With Sirens have came a LONG way since their first album release, With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear, which was released just last year, and definitely wasn’t the best way to break into the scene. I was ready to give up on the American post-hardcore band, hailing from sunny Florida, however with a deep breath and a strong cup of coffee I was ready to tackle Let’s Cheers To This and boy was I surprised.
Continue reading Sleeping With Sirens – “Let’s Cheers To This”
Album Review | Set Your Goals – ‘Burning At Both Ends’
Review: Sibel Kutlucan
I was surprised in the most part to find out that Burning At Both Ends was an album from the San Franciscan boys, Set Your Goals. Burning At Both Ends did disappoint, certainly those who favoured the bands style that exuded melodic hardcore on Mutiny! The bands extremely well received full-length album released in 2006. At points I found Burning At Both Ends to be confused, torn between styles of pop punk and the stereotypical vocal cadence that is Tom Delonge in a nutshell, and the dynamic and enthusiastic melodic hardcore influences that were prominent in Set Your Goals older, well known sound. Although to be fair the band is exploring a newer sound and there are a few great tracks on Burning at both ends that certainly can win a listener over.
“Cure For Apathy” was a shaky opener for the album, with the first 30 seconds seeming forced and displaced, a little over done. This opening slot could have be filled with a number of tracks of the album that would have made for better openers, regardless however, my hopes for Burning At Both Ends weren’t crushed and sure enough by the second track, “Start The Reactor”, a strong and united pop punk sound came through and altogether it was a great song that definitely got the album going for me.
“Trenches” was another track I favoured on the album, it echoed a slew of popular pop punk bands with the catchy lyrics and rhythmic drumming. It definitely was a highlight of Burning At Both Ends for me and it made me feel like bouncing around and letting go of all inhibitions.
Shamefully, I have to admit another favourite for me was “Product of the 80s”, which even for the lyrics alone-that very much reminded me of MC Lars was just plain awesome. Extremely communicable, I struggled to remove it from the repeat loop on my Ipod (lucky it wasn’t the first track, otherwise I may not have made it through the rest of the album).
I may have been a bit harsh to begin with; Burning At Both Ends certainly is confused and misplaced in comparison to the strong and sincere sound that enthralled fans with previous releases from Set Your Goals. Regardless however, the album is still mostly good, not amazing, but good, with some tracks definitely deserving a listen or two. Set Your Goals may be hoping to further delve into pop punk and they have certainly done this with Burning At Both Ends, which as a whole is a vibrant pop punk album.
Review By: Sibel Kutlucan
Tracklist :
1. Cure for Apathy
2. Start the Reactor
3. Certain
4. Happy New Year
5. London Heathrow
6. Trenches
7. The Last American Virgin
8. Exit Summer
9. Unconditional
10. Product of the 80′s
11. Raphael
12. Illuminated Youth
13. Not as Bad
Album Review | Hellogoodbye – ‘Would it kill you?’
Review: Sibel Kutlucan
Hallelujah! Hellogoodbye have praised us with their return to the music world with the extremely dandy new release of their full length album Would It Kill You? An 11 track album that filled the void of the four years without a full length release from the Californian boys, since their release of Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! (released 2006). Would It Kill You? is truly an evolution for the band, maturing greatly from their previously dominant indie-synth and power pop sound; now embracing the indie pop rock sound that is ruling the music scene at the moment. The metamorphosis is extraordinary and definitely has done great things for the album and Hellogoodbye who have come a long way since their disco-esque electronics and syntehsised vocals on older tracks such as Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn.
Continue reading Album Review | Hellogoodbye – ‘Would it kill you?’
Colin Hay – “Gathering Mercury” – Album Review
Review by: Ben Connolly
There’s a warmth to Colin Hay’s vocals which instantly resonates. There’s no confusion as to what’s to be expected when an acoustic guitar and that Scottish-via-Sydney vocal kicks in. Like others of his ilk – namely Robert Forster, Paul Kelly and to a lessor extent The Church’s Steve Kilbey – his peculiar brand of Australian-ness swells the heart and instantly proves to be a soothing salve.
Suffering from an abundance of talent by a fairly lackadaisical approach to career direction, Hay’s name seems to have dropped out of the contemporary consciousness. Save for the odd appearance on an American sitcom (he seems to be the darling of the US medical satire Scrubs) and a recent legal stoush thanks to an opportunistic claim for copyright infringement, Hay has been relatively out of the public eye since the 1985 implosion of Men at Work.
Continue reading Colin Hay – “Gathering Mercury” – Album Review
Marianne Faithfull – “Horses and High Heels” – Album Review
Review: Victoria Nugent
I was a little disappointed when I discovered Marianne Faithfull’s latest album Horses and High Heels consisted mainly of covers. The folk singer better known as a former lover of Mick Jagger during the heyday of the Rolling Stones has over thirty years of singing experience, and I was rather hoping to hear a full body of original songs rather than the mere four present on her 23rd solo album.
Nevertheless Faithfull has gathered a stellar group of supporting artists such as Lou Reed and Dr John to flesh out the album, turning her hand to songs from across a wide range of genres and styles. Produced again by Hal Willner and recorded in the New Orleans French Quarter, the album makes use of New Orleans musicians in the band.
Continue reading Marianne Faithfull – “Horses and High Heels” – Album Review