australia
Video and News: Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, Over Everything
This must be the most perfect laconic, low-fi alt.country indie music match in history – Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile are releasing an album together entitled “Lotta Sea Lice”, due out on 13 October 2017. First release off the album is the song “Over Everything” and it is everything you would expect from these two …
Track: Tora – Empyrean
Australian quartet Tora have set heads turning ahead of the release of their debut album Take a Rest on June 9th, with this insistent, driving electro-indie. New track Empyrean – telling the tale of a homeless man in Montreal, fearing the worst upon the onset of winter, follows the pattern to the letter, layered with …
Live Review: The Underground Lovers, Northcote Social Club 12.05.17 Plus Gallery
Deep in the heartland of the (apparently) hipsterville suburb of Northcote in Melbourne and the hometown of the Underground Lovers: there couldn’t be a better place to witness the launch of the band’s second phase second album, “Staring at You Staring at Me” (reviewed by Backseat Mafia here). From the very start, it felt like …
Track – Velvet Flare – Animal
Straight out of Brisbane and seemingly via the tenements of London comes Velvet Flare with “Animal”, a visceral, angry stab of glam rock that has all the hallmarks of an Antipodean Suede. Singer Paul English has a soaring voice, complete with eviscerating lyrics, that moves effortlessly into a falsetto over a chugging guitar. The accompanying …
Album Review: The Underground Lovers – Staring at you Staring at Me
In 2013, after a nine year hiatus, Melbourne’s legendary The Underground Lovers returned triumphantly with the album “Weekend” – listed as one of Backseat Mafia’s favourite releases for that year. Luckily, this time round we have not been kept waiting so long – four years later and they are back in business with the release …
EP: The Clouds – Zaffre
Along with bands like The Underground Lovers, The Falling Joys and Ratcat, The Clouds held the banner for classic indie pop in Australia in the late eighties, early nineties.The sweet duel vocal harmonies of Jody Phillis and Patricia Young were underpinned by a muscular rhythm section and jangling guitars. Their album, Penny Century, is often …
News: Midnight Oil announce World Tour, includes first UK date since 1996
One of Australia’s most passionate, articulate and socially committed bands, Midnight Oil, have just announced they are reforming and undertaking a world tour in 2017. The enigmatic lead singer, Peter Garrett, spent some time as a Labor politician in 2002, causing the band to go into a hiatus and no end of cynicism amongst those …
Say Psych: Album Review, Mantra Music by Megaritual
One of the comments that I often make in this blog is something along the lines of “I can’t believe that only 2/3 people are making all this great noise”. With Megaritual I need to go a stage further because this album is the work of just one man, Australian multi-instrumentalist Dale Walker (also member of …
Track: Why We Run – A Moment to Return
One of my favourite local Sydney bands, Why We Run, is back with no sign of a waning of their incredible talent. In fact, quite the opposite. I reviewed the debut single, ‘Comfortable Lie’, last year and follow-up release, ‘Ignites’ from with great enthusiasm, and they just keep getting better. Their atmospheric, enigmatic songs fuse …
Album Review: Ben Abraham – Sirens
There have been several moments in reviewing this album where I have wanted to give it a ‘6’. ‘Sirens’ has a warm, lush sound, and the straightforwardness of his delivery and songs suggest a singer-songwriter that believes in his material. You feel like this guy’s alright. Surely he’s better than a ‘5’ ? But that’s not …