backseat downunder
Track: Ron S. Peno & the Superstitions release brilliant double singles ‘The Strangest Feeling’/’Everything Has Changed’ and announce new album ‘Do The Understanding’ for 26 July 2021
It is difficult to express what a profound and integral influence singer/songwriter Ron S. Peno has had on the Australian independent music scene. As co-songwriter writer and frontman for the legendary Died Pretty, the eighties indie scene in Australia was set alight with the band’s inherent ear for pop melodies expressed through Brett Myer’s jangling …
Premiere: Brisbane-based David Rylands’s atmospheric new single ‘Get Heat’ blisters with a haunting euro-disco beat
We are very honoured to premiere the title track of the new EP ‘Get Heat’ from Brisbane artist/songwriter/producer extraordinaire David Rylands, out through that purveyor of good taste, False Peak Records, on Sunday, 20 August 2021. This is quite a tremendous piece of electronica that, for me, brings to mind a meeting between Kraftwerk, Cabaret …
Track: Melbourne’s Holy Holy deliver a shimmering, sparkling track ‘Believe Anything’ and announce new album ‘Hello My Beautiful World’ for August
‘Believe Anything’, the new track from the formidable duo Holy Holy, is a gurgling brook of a song – an electronic thrumming provides a bubbling undercurrent over which effervescent synths stream and epic vocals float. Brief interludes provide a moments of string-laden repose, but this is a full throttle blast of energy that is vibrant …
Premiere: Sydney’s pop punk magicians A Swift Farewell set up a ‘Mousetrap’: an effervescent and thumping delight of a track.
We are honoured to premiere the new track from Sydney’s A Swift Farewell – an ebullient and effervescent indie rock track with an inherent vibrancy and scaling choruses. There is a buzz saw punk edge to the indie pop blast, with singer Emma Mather adding a dynamic performance – a soft yet muscular and melodic …
Track: Perth’s delightful smol fish release the low-fi charmer ‘Like A Lemon’ and announce debut EP for August
Imbued with so much melancholy and angst you could cry, smol fish‘s ‘Like A Lemon’ is impossibly endearing and utterly disarming. Laced with an unashamed Australian accented laid back and droll delivery, the track seethes with a sort of disinterested teenage grumpiness, but in a self-deprecatory and ultimately romantic way. Singer/songwriter Clancy Davidson says of …
Meet: We put the spotlight on Nocturnal Animals and hear their explosive new single ‘Outside’
Adelaide’s Nocturnal Animals are by no means your average indie rock band. They have garnered a lot of attention not only for their unique full throttle angular attack but also their theatricality and propensity for dramatic skeletal make up that makes you think of the Mexican festivities Día de Muertos. We premiered their single ‘Articuna …
Album Review: Quivers unveil the epic, jangling, melancholy indie pop masterpiece of ‘Golden Doubt’ and announce Australia-wide tour.
Starting in the tiny southern capital of Hobart at the edge of the world before moving, as bands often do, to Melbourne, Quivers have caught global attention with their unique brand of melancholy indie pop: a classic antipodean style of jangling guitars and yearning vocals, burnished a little more brightly than many peers with a …
Album Review: Restless Leg lay out an enticing ‘Dream Buffet’ and announce tour
I’m going to call it right now, and you heard it first here (maybe). I’ve been alluding to it in a number of reviews I’ve written over the past 18 months but there is an emerging movement – let’s call it the Marrickville Sound – that has dominated the indie scene in Australia. Emanating from …
Premiere: The legendary Even As We Speak provide us with an exclusive look at the stunning and exquisite video for their moving new single ‘Child’
Even As We Speak‘s glorious and incandescent album ‘Adelphi’ (released through Shelflife Records) made it to my list of the best albums of 2020 from Australia and New Zealand. It has, to quote myself, a fragile and elegant beauty that is hypnotic and immersive. It therefore comes as an immense honour to premiere a spectacular …
Track: Lorde makes a welcome return fuelled by ‘Solar Power’
After quite a lengthy absence since her last release, New Zealand’s Lorde has made a forceful and powerful return with the track ‘Solar Power’. A languid and liquid track, ‘Solar Power’ is a slow burning fuse that builds up to an anthemic finish with the kind of rhythmic drive of ‘Screamadelica’-era Primal Scream. The accompanying …