Recent Posts

LISTEN: Popstrangers – ‘Don’t Be Afraid’

, , No Comment

Popstrangers

Popstrangers’ first record Antipodes made a lot of people sit up and pay attention to New Zealand music. They also released one of my favourite singles last year, the understated ‘Rats in The Palm Trees’. So when new stuff from them ambled onto my radar, I got psyched.

And they didn’t disappoint. Typically for these guys, ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ has the kind of vocal hook that runs around in your head for days, annoying if it wasn’t so bloody good. Where ‘Rats In The Palm Trees’ and previous single ‘Country Kills’ were pretty straight, kinda disillusioned slacker rock songs, ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ has so much going on it’s hard to know where to start.

What’s going on with that bass sound? I’m into it. And hey, it gets cool and dark with just bass, drums and vocals in the verse, and wow, then things go like full Grizzly Bear-pretty (which is ultimate-boss-level prettiness) with that guitar in the chorus. Hang on, I gotta listen to it again.


‘Don’t Be Afraid’ will be out on Popstrangers’ second album Fortuna, hitting shelves and the internet on May 27th.

Facebook / Twitter / Web

INTRODUCING: The Infants

, , No Comment

The Infants

The Infants are a post-punk group formed in Geelong in 2012. They put out a self-titled album mid-last year – complete with creepy, cephalopod-based art work – that sounds tightly wound in comparison to the new, creeping single, ‘Halves’.

The track was recorded in the basement of the band’s current home in Brunswick, and the result is the sort of ghoulish, lurching stuff that wouldn’t sound out of place on the score of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s a kind of gothic pop, or macabre cabaret – like Bushwalking getting a carnivale makeover.

‘Halves’ is the first release from the Infants’ forthcoming EP, due out later this year.

Facebook / Bandcamp

INTRODUCING: Doom Mountain

, , No Comment

Doom Mountain

Surf rock has been well represented over last few years in Australia. Bleeding Knees Club, Dune Rats and Step-Panther are all bands that are representative of the success felt when a couple o’ guys can get together and bust out a killer riff.

Right now, there’s another band that is gunning to similar heights. A band with the enthusiasm of a grommet on his first Al Merrick, the reckless endangerment of an average day at Shipsterns. That’s what Brisbane’s Doom Mountain are going for.

Previous singles ‘Thrill Seeker’ and ‘(I’m So) Wiped Out’ point towards the laid back vibes of Melbourne bands that have been infected by a rabid 6-foot swell, like Bachelor Pad and Ross De Chene Hurricanes. However, their new track ‘Lonely Child’ shows a more, brooding post-punk side to the band, with a looming guitar line that I’m sure The Murlocs are kicking themselves for not thinking up first.

 

Facebook / Soundcloud / Unearthed

PREMIERE: Dark Fair – ‘Poison’

, , No Comment

darkfair

Dark Fair is guitarist Ramona Moore and drummer Ellie Dunn, and they make rock’n’roll music. I mean properly: leather jackets and Chrissie Hynde hairdos. The pair met in Brisbane – where presumably they grew up on a strict regimen of Hole and Magic Dirt – on the live circuit, playing together in Ramona’s band Kate Bradley and the Goodbye Horses.

Via their own circuitous routes, both ended up in Melbourne in 2012 and promptly recorded the debut Dark Fair EP, Penny Universe. Second release, You Shouldn’t Be Mine, is due out in May, and they’ve just dropped the single ‘Poison’.

A driving ballad led by Ramona’s frayed vocal and insistent open strings, ‘Poison’ is punctuated by a sharp bass cameo from pal Adalita – who’s championed the band since catching them live at Yah Yah’s about a year ago. Check out the track below.

Dark Fair are launching the new EP at Old Bar in Melbourne on Saturday, 31 May. You can also catch them playing the final show of their April residency at the Tote tomorrow night, alongside Ohms and tinsmoke.

Facebook / Bandcamp

WATCH: Fraser A. Gorman – ‘Book of Love’

, , No Comment

Fraser A Gorman - Book of Love

Love hath no better form than Fraser A. Gorman toting his IRL pet chicken, ‘Detective Greggs’, around Melbourne’s northern suburbs (dubbed by Fraser as the ‘Bonsoy Belt’). The new video for ‘Book of Love’ also features cheery cameos from Courtney Barnett and band, members of You Am I, Money For Rope and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. The clip was directed by Sunny Leunig, who also plays guitar in Jimmy Tait. I’m certain all of the above have shook on some kind of blood pact to appear in each other’s music clips, partaking in recreational activities (biking, tennis etc). But after being quelled to compassion by Gorman’s poultry pal, not even sure who needs convincing anymore.

YouTube Preview Image

Fraser launches ‘Book of Love’ at the Workers Club in Melbourne this Thursday, 24th of April with Mojo Juju and Palm Springs. 

Facebook / Soundcloud / BUY

INTRODUCING: Adults

, , No Comment

adultsgronkcity

Sydney trio Adults was formed in mid-2012 by former members of Step Panther and Joystick, and debuted last April with the coarse blues of lead track ‘Ominous’. A year later they have followed up with their first EP, Gronk City, which is out now on Bechamel Records – a Popfrenzy offshoot specialising in 7” releases and run by Adults’ own Greg Clennar.

The band’s sound sits somewhere between post punk and C86 jangle, the twee vocals underwritten by scouring guitar and a rhythm section that’s forever to the point. Thematically, Adults embrace a punk notion of the intellectual degenerate. On the lurching peripatetic fantasy ‘Freight Ship’, for example, the protagonist, stowed away with criminals and lunatics, has a taste for the high brow: ‘got me a copy of Rimbaud/got me a copy of Miller’.

In their mix of aesthetic threat and thoughtfulness Adults resemble the gentle punk of Television Personalities. Closer to home, their music has an affinity with the Stevens’ concise interpretations of the Dunedin sound – a relationship that’s particularly clear on Gronk City highlight ‘Rain’.

There’s some genre hopping on the EP, which skips from the twee pop of the opening track to aggressive closer ‘Snail Woman/Women’ with its Sonic Youth-inspired interludes. Adults’ work, however, is extremely satisfying in its bare bones construction, tunefulness and wit.

Stream Gronk City in full after the jump, along with the video for first single ‘Ominous’.

(more…)