backseat downunder
Album Review: JESSICA’s ‘With Reverie’ has a gorgeous ghostly presence filled with longing and loss.
With a delicate piano filigree dusting a series of gorgeously quiet and reflective songs, the new album from Sydney artist JESSICA has the elegance and enigma of an Eric Satie piece fronted by Dusty Springfield. ‘With Reverie’ is essentially a series of haunting vignettes deliciously encapsulated into (mostly) three minute interludes, filled with emotion and …
Album Review: Pluto Jonze releases a multicoloured universe of pop in his vibrant album ‘Awe’
The new album ‘Awe’ by esteemed Sydney-based artist Pluto Jonze (Hey Geronimo) is ten dollops of sweet ethereal goodness, filled with indelible melodies and dreamy, cloudy and hypnotic soundscapes. Jonze displays an ear for melody brushed with a degree of theatricality which makes for a thoroughly enjoyable listen. This is an ambitious album presented in widescreen with …
EP: Teenage Dads release a magnificent dosage of ‘Club Echo’ and announce launch tour
Teenage Dads are a familiar indie quartet from the Morning Peninsula. Their glittery indie music has been winning over fans and listeners throughout the country, and rightfully so when every song they write radiates charisma and peculiarity. Their new eight-track EP ‘Club Echo’ is an idiosyncratic take on the concepts of transformation and perception; poignant …
Premiere: New Zealand’s enigmatic Birds of Passage gives us an exclusive listen to new album ‘The Last Garden’ before its official release
We are very honoured to provide you with an exclusive listen to the new album from New Zealand’s mysterious Birds of Passage, ‘The Last Garden’, ahead of its release on Friday, 5 November 2021 through Denovali Records. Other than being the nom de plume of New Zealand based poet and songwriter Alicia Merz, there is …
Track: The shimmering Salarymen are back with their effervescent new single ‘All In Vain’ and tour news.
Sydney duo Salarymen have about them a sixties-infused sparkle that recollects artists like St Etienne and Lily Allen – bright and effervescent pop that seem to emit a healthy glow while touched with that essential pop ingredient: a sprinkle of melancholia. Their new single ‘All In Vain’ contains all these essential parts: it is a …
Premiere: Australian duo Gunning For Allie unveil the sparkling single ‘Stay’
The new single ‘Stay’ from duo Gunning for Allie, which we are honoured to premiere today on Backseat Mafia, is a bright effervescent pop delight filled with anthemic choruses and heartfelt, emotive verses. Gunning for Allie consists of long-time friends and collaborators Joshua Mulheran and James Waters. Mulheran says of the duo: James and I started …
EP: Wolf & Chain’s ‘Amor Mortal’ is a romping cathartic blast of delicious theatrical excess
At the very heart of rock’n’roll must lurk the innate desire for the smell of the greasepaint and the glare of the floodlights: theatrics must surely form the very DNA of a good band. Wolf & Chain are proving themselves to be the most entertaining and adept purveyors of a whomping style of glam excess, and it …
Track: The Terrifying Lows are ‘Waiting For The Sun’: a deliciously dark piece of gothic post punk pop.
The Terrifying Lows is the work of Melbourne-based musician and Gamilaroi artist Tyler Millott, and the new single ‘Waiting For The Sun’ is a deliciously dark piece of gothic post punk pop. An indelible melody and anthemic chorus are delivered across a jangling dark synth/guitar filigree with a sparse evocative bass spine. This is an …
EP: Whatever, Forever release the epic melodic punk EP ‘Slowly Dying With You’
To reinvent yourself is to grow, adapt and mature. Change is an intimidating peril that can reveal the best and worst of most artists. Sydney emo-punk trio Whatever, Forever have overcome hindrances to share their illuminating inventive perception through their new EP ‘Slowly Dying With You’ – a five track culmination of the sensitive and …
Album Review: The legendary Even jangles up a storm with their sparkling, immersive double album ‘Reverse Light Years’
Nothing succeeds like excess, and when it’s a double album of melodic anthems infused with a sixties pop harmonies, seventies guitar solos and an eighties/nineties mix of jangling guitars and pop melodies, you really can’t go wrong. ‘Reverse Light Years’, the new double album from Melbourne legends Even has all that and more, and leaves …