|
 Photo: Aaron Sammut
It is shaping up to be a promising evening for Australian rock music with each band on the bill having built their reputations on excellent live performances. Locals Stature::Statue are up first, a band comprised mainly of hair and guitars. The tightness of the band is immediately apparent as they blast out math-rock inflected post-punk with precision and finesse, ever changing riffs coalescing with rapid-fire drumming and the occasional loop. It’s a promising set and I suspect that much like Samson they will get stronger as their hair gets bigger.
Continuing the evening are Melbourne’s Baseball, Evelyn Morris returning from her visit as Pikelet a couple of months ago. The voice of frontman Cameron Potts would be hard to describe as easy on the ears, but nonetheless it’s great at propelling Baseball’s brand of Eastern-tinged indie rock. He appears rather dishevelled and every bit a crazed frontman, attacking his viola with ferocity. Morris is unsurprisingly fantastic on the drums, particularly on Land Of Darkness-Land Of Dogs, and her vocals add a welcome sweetness that balances out the slightly less pretty voice of Potts. The charming Mozart And The Whale provides a change in pace and is probably as close to conventional as Baseball might stray. Album opener Soft Boy Factory is another highlight and the band seem even better in the second half of the set.
As Perth’s Snowman appear on stage, Andy Citawarman announces simply that the following is The Horse, The Rat & The Swan, and what then occurs is indeed their excellent second album in full, start to finish. It’s a brave approach that illustrates Snowman’s intent to go beyond simply playing songs live by deliberately delivering the record in its full context, uncorrupted by the concept of a setlist.
It’s about the fifth time I’ve seen Snowman over the course of their career but I have never seen them as focused and single-minded as they are here tonight – a band with a mission indeed. Olga Hermanniusson switches from bass to saxophone for the superbly kinetic Daniel Was A Timebomb and Ross DiBlasio’s mechanical drumming lays a strong foundation throughout. Joe McKee is a more obvious frontman than he has been in the past and it’s as if the band have clicked into a new phase. The latter half of the set allows the less structured tracks to meld into one another, an undulating soundscape held steady by the rhythm section.
Diamond Wounds grinds to its glorious close thus completing the album, but the band return for an encore, a final gift to the punters before they venture abroad to London indefinitely. They embark on the immense Wormwood, a song that follows a cycle of escalation from a sinister bassline into a sonic whirlwind of horror movie guitar and haunting vocal tones before crashing down, only to gradually rise up again. Joe McKee wanders out into the audience still playing his guitar to scream in people’s faces and they oblige by screaming back at him. The cycle repeats itself for the final time and the song crashes once more, bringing the superb set to a close. I wonder if London knows what it’s in for.
MICHAEL PINCOTT
CHECK OUT MORE PHOTOS HERE
|
| Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged. |
|
Be first to comment on this article
