photo by Wayne Dennon

Sunk Loto – ‘Help’

No your ears don’t deceive you – there actually is a metal band being posted about in the predominantly indie-dominated blog scene. Let’s face it, metal ain’t the most popular genre at the moment. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t good bands out there, and Sunk Loto is one of them. These guys have had a very rocky history – they were signed to Sony at around the age of 18 after winning a band comp in Queensland, they then released a fairly popular EP entitled Society Anxiety, and followed that up with the less well-received Big Picture Lies LP, both of which were heavily nü-metal influenced. They were being pushed by their label to be the next Silverchair, and were gaining huge supports and travelling around the country on the Big Day Out tour.

Two years after the release of Big Picture Lies they dropped the pummeling Between Birth and Death, a complete 180-turn on their previous style. Instead of nü-metal, accessible songs, Between Birth and Death was a full-on metal album inspired by the likes of Poison the Well and Killswitch Engage, and dealt with issues such as a friend’s suicide, drug addiction and divorce. Of course, the old material was at complete odds with their new material, so the old fans didn’t like it and those who would of liked the new material had already been turned off from their old stuff. Geddit??

So the band were struggling with a falling popularity, as well as dealing with managers who were ripping them off. Then the SonyBMG merger resulted in Sunk being dropped from the label. Recently, the band lost their long-time bass player Sean Van Gennip, who has now been replaced by ex-Full Scale bottom-ender Robkaay. But now the band are about to hit the road with Cog and Mammal, and are holding auditions for a second guitarist and writing for a third album. So maybe things are on the up. Let’s hope so.

http://www.sunkloto.com
http://www.myspace.com/sunkloto

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The Butterfly Effect – ‘Reach’

The Butterfly Effect (named long before the Ashton Kutcher film) are one of those bands that seem to divide people – either they love them, or they hate them. They first came to the attention of the Australian public courtesy of Triple J radio presenter Costa Zouliou who fell in love with their song ‘The Cell’ off their debut EP. At the time, the band were still independent – and I ended up seeing them in 2001 at a small pub in Sydney called Bar Broadway supporting Cog and now both bands have become two of Australia’s biggest alternative-rock acts. The band had an incredible knack of creating the right blend of melody and heavy riffage, and the soaring, operatic vocals of Clint Boge topped it all off. It wasn’t long before these guys took off.

Which takes me back to my original point – people love or hate them. I think it may come down to Clint the vocalist – some people love his voice, and others can’t stand it. Also, he exudes a fair amount of confident on and off the stage and a lot of people take that as arrogance. Earlier this year he went on a drunken tyrade on the band’s official message board (funnily enough the band no longer have a message board on their site), so that didn’t help Clint’s image. But I interviewed him earlier this year and found him to be a really nice guy, so the question remains unanswered.

The band released the rock-fueled Begins Here LP a couple of years ago (their debut long player) which cemented their place at the top of the Aussie rock contingent. They then took a step sideways and released the far-more melodic Imago a couple of months ago, which they recorded in the States with producer Joe Barresi (Tool, Tomahawk, Queens of the Stone Age). The sound on the album is nothing short of huge, and contains some fantastic songs. It’s taken me a while to get into the album because even though I love melodic music, Imago is a big change from Begins Here, but still excellent nonetheless.

http://www.thebutterflyeffect.com.au/
http://www.myspace.com/thebutterflyeffectau

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Clare Bowditch

There’s an abundance of folk-inspired music around at the moment, but Melbourne singer-songwriter Clare Bowditch manages to do it a little differently.  At their core, her songs are folk, but she layers them with such wonderful instrumentation, courtesy of her backing band The Feeding Set, which includes a couple of well-known Australian indie musicians such as Marty Brown from Art of Fighting & Sodastream, and J. Walker of Machine Translations (although he’s not officially a Feeding Set man).

I wasn’t sold on her when I first heard her tunes, but she soon won me over with her fantastic vocal ability and her wonderful lyrical strength.  In the vein of classic songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and even modern-day writers such as Adam Duritz and Ryan Adams, she tells great stories that engage the listener, with just the right amount of Australiana.  Clare’s released two albums with The Feeding Set, Autumn Bone and What Was Left (I own the latter of the albums).  She’s completely independent, but with the help of government funding, Clare has been able to get her music out to the masses, and do so quite successfully.

It’s been a little while between records – What Was Left came out almost a year ago – so Clare is currently in the alchemy chamber with her band brewing up a new batch of songs.  So I thought I’d grab a track from her latest release, an interesting number called ‘Divorcee by 23’.

Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set – ‘Divorcee by 23’

http://www.clarebowditch.com
http://www.myspace.com/clarebowditch

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Karnivool

The first time I saw the band name Karnivool written down, I had serious doubts about them – what decent band would spell their name like that, only a dodgy high school metal act would do that.  That was until I heard these guys… and that was it, I was completely blown away!

Karnivool are far from a juvenile metal act, they’re one of this country’s best heavy bands.  Their debut EP Persona generated a lot of buzz around their home state of Western Australia, but it wasn’t until ‘Shutterspeed’ hit the airwaves of Triple J, a support slot on the Cog tour and the release of their awesome album Themata that Karnivool took off.  They’re a metal band at their core, but they infuse their music with a strong sense of melody, mixed with some mindblowing instrumentation and constantly-shifting time signatures, and what you get is music light years ahead of so many heavy acts.  It’s their infectious music and great groove that’s opened them up to a national audience.

The band was still independent when they released Themata, and the past couple of weeks has seen the band ink a deal with the American label Bieler Bros. Records, which means the album’s going to get a release in the States and other countries too. They’re currently trekking around Australia on their Synopsis tour, their final national tour before they hit the studios to record a new album. So I think we’ll grab the track that brought them to national attention – ‘Shutterspeed’.

Karnivool – ‘Shutterspeed’

http://www.karnivool.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/karnivool

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International Karate

‘Post-rock’ has never been a genre that’s taken off in Australia. Despite the fact that stalwarts of the style such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Sigur Ros and Explosions In The Sky are quite popular here, that influence has never found its way into new bands. Maybe it’s because in Australia, the chance of being a successful band playing to a niche market is remote considering the size of our population and the limited exposure radio gives acts who push songs beyond the standard 3 1/2 minute format, or who don’t have mass appeal.

But like English poet William Cowper once wrote, “variety’s the very spice of life”, and thankfully Melbourne act International Karate are leading the way in the Australian post-rock movement. They were selected by Decoymusic.com as an entrant in their first annual Post Rock challenge.

The band has been around since 1997, and have released two albums: Weapons of Mass Protection (2003) and A Monstor in Soul (2004). With only four members, these guys still manage to create an impressive and formidable wall of sound. Their new album, More Of What We’ve Heard Before Than We’ve Ever Heard Before is due out very soon, and for the first time will include vocals on selected tracks. To get a taste of what’s to come, we’ve got a special live version of ‘The Future’s Not What It Used To Be’ recorded at Flowercut 2005, and the studio version of said song will appear on International Karate’s forthcoming album.

International Karate – ‘The Future’s Not What It Used To Be (live)’ (mp3)

http://www.internationalkarate.net
http://www.myspace.com/internationalkarateband

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The Valentinos

You can’t say the words “Sydney music scene” and “indie” without conjuring up images of The Valentinos – the darlings of the Sydney scene at this moment in time. They encapsulate everything about music that’s fashionable at the moment – subtle yet prominent 80’s influences, synthesisers, skinny jeans, new-wave hair cuts, bleach-clean guitar and funky tunes that straddle the line between rock and dance. The fact that they play with rock acts, but are also on the bill for Parklife, one of Australia’s biggest dance music events, should give you a fair indication of their genre-mashing abilities.

The Valentinos are one of those bands that you wished you’d have thought of – they’ve only been together 18 months and they’ve already amassed a large following. Their first self titled EP was produced by Kim Moyes from The Presets and now they’re back with their follow-up release Damn and Damn Again, produced this time by Aussie electronic duo Pnau. The first song lifted off the forthcoming EP, ‘Rain’ is a far greater melodic affair that their previous work, which had been written after the band had been together for a month.

The band are trekking around Australia during August and the start of September, and this week sees them hit my home town of Sydney for two shows at Club 77 and at Spectrum, so I’ll definitely be going along to one of them. The boys are also on the cover of The Brag this week. To get you in the mood, here’s a track from their debut EP, ‘Man With A Gun’, the song that brought the band to the national audience.

The Valentinos – ‘Man With A Gun’

http://www.valentinoteamfighting.com
http://www.myspace.com/thevalentinos

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Bertie Blackman

I should precede this blog with the following: despite the fact that I like Bertie Blackman, I do find her hit and miss.  Her songs are either fantastic, or they’re far from it.  I’ve been a big fan of Bertie’s voice ever since I heard her single ‘Favourite Jeans’ on the radio.  Even the singles she’s released following ‘Favourite Jeans’ I’ve enjoyed. 

But there are times when Bertie writes songs that are difficult to like.  For example, she often has songs where it’s just her and an electric guitar and aside from the fact that the guitar playing is pretty messy, it just comes out boring.  But then she’ll have a backing band for another song and it will sound fantastic.  I really think she should either have a full band, or if she’s going to play solo, pick up an acoustic guitar rather than have a song that sounds like a dodgy b-side from a crappy 90’s riot-grrl band.

What Bertie Blackman manages to do well is differentiate herself from the myriad of singer-songwriters that flood the music market.  Her performance supporting Jeff Martin was engaging albeit hit and miss – she had a wonderful backing guitarist playing U2-like melodies and it sat wonderfully with her music, and why she doesn’t encorporate the delay/reverb backing guitar more often is beyond me.  Bertie Blackman is a talented songstress, and she needs to learn how to hone her skills – I think once she does that, she’ll take off.  So sit back and enjoy one of her great tunes, ‘Television’.

Bertie Blackman – ‘Television’ (mp3)

http://www.bertieblackman.com
http://www.myspace.com/bertieblackman

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