Track: Aussie indie stalwarts Children Collide return with the psychedelic track Trampoline and announce tour and album
Melbourne’s Children Collide are a solid piece of the furniture in the house of indie rock in Australia, producing some of the most enjoyable indie rock/pop over the last ten or so years. They have just announced the welcome news of a new album, the return to the live circuit and the release of a …
Premiere: Blackbirds FC release the gorgeously shimmering single ‘Island of the Dogs’ and announce new album
With a sparkling jangle and a deeply satisfying crunchy rhythm, the new single ‘Island of the Dogs’ by Melbourne band Blackbirds FC is immense and cinematic, and we are proud to premiere this on Backseat Mafia. There is an unmistakable antipodean blood flowing through the veins of this song – drawing in the wide sweeping …
Track: KAI CULT lights a fuse with ‘Cigarette Burns’
With a frenetic pace tilting along at full speed, Melbourne artist KAI CULT‘s new single ‘Cigarette Burns’ is energetic, unhinged and absolutely satisfying. Like a masked antagonist careering through the night with a chainsaw, the music slashes and burns under the band’s disturbed, yelping, laconic vocals. It’s controlled chaos, utterly cathartic with a genetic connection …
Track: MOAT – a collaboration between Marty Willson-Piper (ex The Church) and Niko Röhlcke – releases the brilliant single ‘Helpless You’.
Marty Willson-Piper was a founding member of the legendary Australian band The Church – an iconic and much loved figure with his rock star image, hooped earrings, paisley shirts and Rickenbackers. His was an integral part of the sixties jingle jangle guitar sound that heavily influenced an international movement with bands such as REM. While …
EP Review: New Zealand’s Bitter Defeat launch a veritable rocket with their brilliant EP ‘Minor Victory’
Blasting out with ‘Light That Shines’ is a an appropriate taster of what’s to come from Bitter Defeat‘s new EP ‘Minor Victory’. Lauded by me last year, this is a hyperactive and anarchic track of joy: a new wave pogo-inducing rocket-fueled delight. And what I love about this band is its lack of pretension, a …
EP Review: Nick Ward’s deeply personal treatise on identity in ‘Everything I Wish I Told You’ is beautiful, empowering pop.
Sydney’s Nick Ward is only nineteen but the maturity and stature of his new EP, ‘Everything I Wish I Told You’ is phenomenal. In instrumentation, vocals and lyrical themes, this is a fully formed piece of indie pop that sparkles with melody and rhythms. The themes are very personal and born from the strictures of …
Track: The Rosie Varela Project debuts luscious shoegaze track ‘Low’
Rosie Varela is the singer, songwriter and guitarist for the brilliant Texan shoegaze outfit Eep (whose single ‘Hogar’ I raved about last year). She has now branched out as The Rosie Varela Project (RVP) and released the first of a slough of singles in anticipation of an album later this year. And ‘Low’ clearly puts …
Album Review: Josh Thorpe’s album ‘Love & Weather’ is a blistering delight.
We proudly premiered the video of ‘Down to the Ground’ last week by Glaswegian-based artist and musician Josh Thorpe, and the excitement caused by this single is only exceeded by listening to the entire album from whence it came – ‘Love & Weather’. There is an imperious grandiosity about this album – studied and eloquent …
Premiere: Damien Binder’s new single ‘Here It Is’ is a shining beacon of soul-stirring, anthemic indie pop.
We are honoured to premiere the new single ‘Here It Is’ from New Zealand-born Western Australian resident Damien Binder which is out on Friday, 5 February 2021. Binder began his musical life in nineties NZ band Second Child before moving west to Australia – Perth to be precise – and releasing, to date, four solo …
See: Charlie Clark releases hilarious and charming video for the jangling single ‘Don’t Have A Cow, Man’.
Charlie Clark‘s brilliant single ‘Don’t Have A Cow, Man’ (reviewed by me here) still resonates strongly after numerous listens – I described it as ‘a pulse quickening bell that rings out with jangling guitars, lush choruses and a sense of strength and rebirth’. Clark has followed this up with an utterly charming and hilarious video …