When the “20 Years of Hottest 100” was announced yesterday, you’d be forgiven for experiencing some déjà vu. Didn’t we just celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hottest 100 back in 2009, with another “All-Time Hottest 100?” Of course, this is supposed to commemorate the first annual Hottest 100 (songs from that year), and, conveniently,…
It’s that time of the year again, when the rumour mongering comes to an end and all is revealed. Yes, the Splendour in the Grass lineup has been announced. First impressions: there’s no real, spectacular drawcard here. Certainly, Frank Ocean is exciting, but where’s, I dunno, Blur? When your top headliner is … eh ……
James Blake’s first full length was demonstrative of an artist capable of constructing beautiful, delicate melodies; complex, crystalline songs that evoked a general feeling of malaise and melancholy without getting bogged down in specifics. That complexity went hand-in-hand with a tendency for simple – often, overly simple – songwriting: it’s no coincidence that the strongest…
I don’t want Pissed Jeans to become successful. I don’t mean this in a hipster “I don’t want these guys to sell out and become mainstream” kinda way. If they sold more records, there’s a better chance they’d tour Australia, after all. No, it’s because it’s hard to imagine the band’s unique template working if…
“Comedown Machine” is indebted to summery ‘80s pop (suggested by almost-title-track “’80s Comedown Machine”) rather than the rough-edge ‘70s garage/punk sound that drove The Strokes’ still-great debut. It’s a bit stale compared to the breath of fresh air of Is This It, but it’s not fair to criticise an album for what it isn’t, and…
Purity Ring’s music has an intensely personal feel, like a peek at the scrapbook/diary entries of a troubled teenage girl. It’s fitting, then, that their live show felt hand-made. The stage was draped with papier-mâché lanterns, and the music was produced by a custom-built tree-instrument, featuring drum-pads that produced xylophonic notes and flashed with their…
Music festivals are usually a carefully planned calendar event: I decide very quickly whether I’m going to attend, then pick up tickets pre-sale. The 2013 Soundwave festival didn’t grab my attention when the lineup was announced: a handful of bands I liked but too few to justify forking out $200. Fast forward six months to…
The first band of the day (well, after hearing a couple songs from Mindless Self Indulgence, who I knew nothing about) was The Vandals, one of the first punk bands I listened to back when I got into the genre in my teens. Early in the day, the moshpit was sparsely attended, which meant that…
The next band was Gallows: I’ve seen them live twice before – at Taste of Chaos in 2008, when I knew nothing about them and was impressed by their combative energy, and at Soundwave in 2010, (now a fan) where I spent their ferocious, uncompromising set in the eddies of a turbulent moshpit. However, those…
I found my way to Sleeping with Sirens next, purely because a student had recommended them. They were pretty much what you’d expect for a band recommended by a teenage girl – emo popcore, with members more interested in their hair than playing their instruments. That said, their song “Trophy Father’s Trophy Son” was a…
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