Review by Wanda Hill
Photo by Amanda Brenchley
Soilwork launched their Australian tour in Brisbane last night at the HiFi bar in Westend. As you would expect, a sea of people clad in black were waiting to welcome this fine melodic death metal band from Sweden.
Soilwork are in Australia promoting their recent double album The Living Infinite. This high energy album has sold very well around the country and is a personal favourite of mine.
As the band entered the stage a roar went up in the crowd letting them know of the anticipation we all felt. The band looked very happy to back on our shores after a three year absence.
The show got underway revealing that these guys love performing and have awesome stage presence and connection with the audience. Everything looked great, the lighting, the artwork, the band members, but the sound was very disappointing. I was so excited about hearing songs from their new album live but was just devastated that the guitars were so soft in the mix and that everything but the drums seemed to get lost in the wall of noise. What was especially frustrating was that I could see the guitar solos being played with enthusiasm and style by Sylvain Coudret and David Andersson, but I just could not hear them.
Continue reading Live Review: Soilwork @ The Hi-Fi, Brisbane – October 2, 2013
Boldness is not generally an adjective jumping to mind when you think of Kiwi band Shihad. With its skinny black-jeans clad legs planted firmly in the safe melodic-tinged rock scene pushed forth as the genre de jour of the late 90s and early 00s, you’d hardly seek out their albums to push boundaries or explore sonic adventures. Even more so in the past few years, where they’ve rotated around the all-too-familiar downward spiral of record-promote-tour-hope for relevance-rinse-repeat: it’s hardly a recipe for the cutting edge. 
It’s been a long time coming for fans of Finnish band Apocalyptica to finally catch the band on Australian soil for the first time in their 16+ year career – and it was well worth the wait.
The Ocean are one of the more interesting bands of the past few decades. The brainchild of guitarist Robin Staps, The Ocean has, over the years, morphed into one of the most forward thinking and innovative metal bands in the world. Their show at Melbourne’s Hi-Fi bar on Saturday night was the second last leg of their maiden tour of Australia, and what a night it was.
