The third album from Melbourne’s The Ancients is a record that hurtles, ambles and breezes by with equal amounts of intricate musicality and simple skewed-pop broad strokes. There is a wistful 60s folk tinge to songs like House of Cards, the lighter contrast to their more layered and dense psych excursions such as the shoegaze haze of Hamster and the epic Molokai that manages to … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: The Ancients | Night Bus
Pond are and forever will be compared to Tame Impala, with whom they share a few members, and yes they both trade in retro-fitted psychedelic rock but dig below the surface and the two bands are clearly circling different planets. On Hobo Rocket they’ve pulled back on the overblown eccentricities that were generally to their detriment and produced a concise, freewheeling and fun album. The … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Pond | Hobo Rocket
Callinan is still spreading the good word on foreign shores (including CMJ) and getting great praise for his shows and album Embracism ahead of a return to Australia to play Laneway and support for Savages in January. He has also just released the video for one of my favourite Embracism tracks, the slow, bruised grace of Landslide. Continue reading WATCH: Kirin J Callinan | Landslide
Hope Springs are a trio from the Sunshine Coast of Australia who trade in the kind of indie guitar music that intersected post rock in the 90s and created literate and emotive songs that played with structure and dynamics. The band have recently recorded a Balcony TV spot for their forthcoming single Sooner Or Later which will appear on their second EP featuring production work by … Continue reading WATCH: Hope Springs preview new single on Balcony TV
One of our favourites of the last year, Courtney Barnett, has released the video for her excellent Avant Gardener single. The track comes from her LP The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas due out October 15th. Continue reading VIDEO: Courtney Barnett | Avant Gardener
Wellington, NZ band The Golden Awesome are heading to Melbourne for a handful of shows in October after they support Beach Fossils in their hometown later this month. If you’re a fan of dense, layered hypnotic rock music then you’ll want to get along and check them out. They continue the same psych lineage of bands like MBV, Lush, Ride and JAMC while also tipping … Continue reading TOUR NEWS: The Golden Awesome announce Melbourne shows
It’s good to see Uncle Al Jourgensen ageing disgracefully in the clip for PermaWar, the first single from what is purportedly the final album under the Ministry name. As usual Jourgensen has made a play on words calling the album From Beer To Eternity. The song itself ticks all the industrial metal boxes and it chugs along with just the right balance of menace and … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Ministry | PermaWar
by Chris Familton The years roll by but New Zealand seems to have the consistent knack for throwing up bands that continue the lineage that was formed in the early 80s while still carving out a niche for themselves in the overcrowded world of left-of-centre guitar rock. Popstrangers have already released a stellar record this year and now Ghost Wave have turned potential into an … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Ghost Wave | Ages
by Chris Familton Over the space of a few years Julia Holter has quickly established herself as a composer, songwriter and singer with a special talent for creating sonically exquisite music. Hers is a musical style that channels classical, jazz, folk, electronica and the avant-garde and Loud City Song stands as her most fascinating and fully realised album to date. There is a feeling akin … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Julia Holter | Loud City Song
by Chris Familton Mix small town pessimism, youthful optimism, suburban nihilism and a lo-fi aesthetic and you have some of the ingredients that make the essential sound of Bad//Dreems on their superb Badlands EP. The Adelaide natives have been teasing/threatening us for a while now with a string of singles (Chills, Tomorrow Mountain and Caroline) and now those songs plus another trio of equally terrific … Continue reading REVIEW: Bad//Dreems | Badlands EP
by Chris Familton On his debut album Daughn Gibson painted a fascinating world soundtracked by Americana, electronica and gothic balladry. The artwork for that album was subdued black and white and fittingly, in line with the music within, the cover of Me Moan is a darker themed explosion of pink and purple sexual and religious imagery. Gibson has taken the basic musical premise of All … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Daughn Gibson | Me Moan
For many In Utero is their favourite Nirvana LP where the band carved out their most unique collection of songs and felt like they were developing into something truly special outside the hype and platitudes of press and mass appeal. Indeed their reaction to that and everything else that was happening in Cobain’s world ran deeply through the record. Universal Music Enterprises will commemorate the … Continue reading NEWS: Universal announce ‘In Utero’ 20th Anniversary Reissue
Doubtful Sounds 