Dardanelles – ‘Mirror Mirror’

Australian bands have a fascination with the Eighties. Whether it’s the nasal snark of electro, or the dark echoes of post-punk – and occasionally the fashion sense – Aussie musos love to delve back into the era of big hair and power ballads.

Melbourne’s Dardanelles are no exception. Taking lead from bands of that era like The Cure (particularly Disintegration / Pornography era), Joy Division and artists of that ilk, they’ve built themselves up quite a following here with their combination of reverb-heavy guitars, baritone vocals and driving rhythms. .

Mirror Mirror is their debut record, recorded by acclaimed producer Pauk “Woody” Annison who’s produced, amongst others, Sydney act Red Riders’ debut record Replica Replica. Aside from similarities in album titles, their sounds both hark back to the post-punk / new-wave movement of the late 70s/early 80s, however Dardanelles throw in the extra element of keys which adds a serene ambience to a number of their tunes.

I didn’t think I’d like this album, because I’ve pretty much missed the whole punk revivalist movement, but this is rather cool.

http://www.myspace.com/dardanelles

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Cog – ‘Sharing Space’

Another taste of the forthcoming album from Sydney three-piece Cog: this time it’s the title track to the LP, Sharing Space. Once again, it’s musical gold for the band that effortlessly mixes Tool-esque progressive elements with a melodic richness that makes it palpable even to those who despise loud guitars.

Focussing more on hooks and melody than the first single off the album, ‘What If’, ‘Sharing Space’ continuously drives along, thanks in part to Lucius Borich’s constant kick drum, thumping away on the beat. The production is superb, with multi-layered vocals giving the song a rich texture and plenty of melody. There’s no monstorous riffs in this song which is somewhat of a departure for the band, and it seems they’ve wanted to listener to focus more on the vocals and the beat. There’s some deft use of electronic drums as well which adds an extra element of interest.

If ‘Sharing Space’ and ‘What If’ are anything to go by, this next album is going to be one amazing CD.

http://www.cog.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/cogrockmusic

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The Saturns – ‘I’ll Be Alright’ (mp3)

I’m a late convert to the church of The Saturns. I really only discovered their joyous blues and 70s inspired rock and roll a couple of weeks ago when I put on their debut EP Here’s The Saturns. If you’re sick of Jet peddling the retro vibe and killing it for every other band because they saturated the market, then perhaps you should throw on The Saturns to restore your faith in bands who are looking into the past for inspiration, and doing it with joie de vivre.

Vocalist Nathan Carr Daniel Holdsworth has the perfect rock voice, and in ‘I Could Be The One’ he shows it off with some great vocal howls in a song based around the 12 bar blues and it doesn’t sound stale at all. ‘Ease My Mind’ has guitars that twang along; the whole song having a Rolling Stones kinda vibe.

It’s all about fun for this Sydney five piece who burst out of your stereo with excitement, energy and uncontrollable foot-tapping rhymths.

http://www.thesaturns.com
http://www.myspace.com/heresthesaturns

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photo by Melinda Comerford

Nina May – ‘It’s Easy To Be Worst’

So this blog’s been in existence for over a year now and surprisingly, one of our most popular posts has been my inaugural post on Brisbane outfit Nina May over 10 months ago. A lot of things have changed since that post – namely, they’ve released their debut EP Make Love To Your Stereo; gone are the poor quality demos on their MySpace and in their place are rocking tunes from the EP; and I’ve hung out with their lovely vocalist Erinn Swan a couple of times and found out what she’s actually singing about in ‘Monsters In The Dark’… is it too late to renege my comments about said song’s lyrics?

What else has changed is that this four-piece has become somewhat of a musical juggernaut, thanks in part to a fantastic 6-track EP recorded at Modern Music Studios in Brisbane. When I originally heard ‘Monsters In The Dark’ I was enamoured by that song but the other tracks that were up on their MySpace page didn’t really do much for me. But since its release, the EP has been one of my favourite local releases for 2007. I’ve said many, many times that I’m a sucker for a rock group with a sassy female vocalist, and there’s not many that do it better in Australia than Nina May. A lazy comparison might be to recent visitors to our shores Paramore, but Nina May mix progressive and alt. rock elements with their love of a good pop hook.

Case in point: ‘It’s Easy To Be Worst’, the dark finale to Make Love To Your Stereo. It features backing vocals courtesy of The Veronicas Jessica Origliasso and what sets this song apart from the rest of the EP is that it sees the band branching out with their sounds and song structures – there’s great use of acoustic guitar and bass swells, and it crescendos into a thundering ending before abruptly being ripped back to a minimal harmonised guitar line. There’s hooks as well as some killer riffs.

Kudos goes to either Erinn or Jess who have some excellent screams in this song, and to Simon who’s the king of pinch/artificial harmonics. The band are also going to be playing live on MTV’s The Lair this Thursday night so anyone in Australia with Foxtel or Austar should keep an eye out for this band on their TV sets.

http://www.myspace.com/ninamaymusic

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The Captain’s Package – ‘Out of Focus’

To propagate my laziness, I’ll just quote a review I wrote of The Captain’s Package for The Brag sometime last year: “A melting pot of Faith No More and Mr Bungle-esque sounds with a B-52s mentality, their music isn’t easily contained within whimsical musical adjectives… (it’s) a side-step away from what most bands are composing around Sydney.”

At that stage, The Captain’s Package had some enthralling musical elements in place but some songs were better than others and they seemed to be searching for what “their sound” could be. Now they’re set to release their brand new record Happiness which was recorded with producer Evan McHugh and if the first taste of the CD is anything to go by, ‘Out Of Focus’, they’ve found their niche in a crowded scene. It’s a song akin to ‘House of Fun’-era Madness with the male-female duelling vocals of the B-52s. Ska meets pop meets avant-garde. They’re launching Happiness on December 1 at Bar Broadway in Sydney, and it should be a night of decadence and extravagance.

http://www.myspace.com/thecaptainspackage

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http://www.regurgitator.net
http://www.myspace.com/regurgitators

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Get your pop on while Ricki-Lee gets her boobs out.

Sorry, no MC Hammer here.

http://www.myspace.com/rickileeofficial

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