Southern Sickness Won't Heal

If you want hardcore noise insanity, look no further than Antipodean Sickness, the brutally base LP from Sydney miscreants Tanned Christ. Featuring members of Making, Narrow Lands and Totally Unicorn, their almost math-like precision and propensity for raw yet rambunctious metal destruction looks both incongruous and also makes a lot of sense. You can hear a bit of Queensland contemporaries Idylls here, but even moreso The Locust - yet the articulate musicianship that meshes the madness into a heaving cataclysmic whole is somehow more than such a comparison. Faces, minds, membranes melt; hearts pound like frightened birds against cracking ribcages; pressure builds; blood boils. This album is made out of red sweat and black bile - but who says that abject aggression can't put a smile on your cadaverous dial?

Antipodean Sickness is out through Grindhead Records now - you can get it in red, clear or marble wax. Tanned Christ are about to embark on a national tour - see the following furious dates below...

18/9 Sydney Black Wire Records w/ Controlled Burlap and Avian Terror https://www.facebook.com/events/1742420615985651/

19/9 Bateman's Bay North Street Cafe w/ Fait Accompli Dead Bear I Kid K https://www.facebook.com/events/936628369731770/

25/9 Canberra Magpies w/ Loather Starrats. Agency https://www.facebook.com/events/1019557724721981/

26/9 Melbourne The Old Bar w/ In Trenches Disasters YACHTBURNER Christ Crusher- Melbourne Grind Syndicate 666 https://www.facebook.com/events/408710035920403/

1/10 Parramatta Beatdisc Records w/ Tired Minds FRAME 313 Home burial https://www.facebook.com/events/1633196263624454/

2/10 Newcastle Hamilton Station w/ Tired Minds Suburban Haze + TBC https://www.facebook.com/events/428630397329194/

3/10 Brisbane Fat Louies w/ Blind Girls Brazen Bull DEAFCULT

Hellish Highlife Made

I have to say I am a little confused by Making... I was pretty sure the Sydney trio were breaking up. But seems I was (thankfully) entirely wrong, as they release their new LP Highlife next month through Trait Records. I have been a fan of theirs since hearing their excellent self titled EP and this lives up to the long expectations. The first track that really grabs me is the fourth track on the album, 'Come To Me' - it has that My Disco brooding pendulum rhythm and clipped/barked monosyllabic vocal approach, but then it explodes into something altogether more gnarled and corrosive. 'Zs' also fits into this vein, although there is a heavier metallic expulsion here that pushes them into noisier terrain. 'Dream Job' lurches forth, a metallic monster, deliberately unsettled and unsettling, serrated and scabrous, forcing the bile into the back of the throat. Then 'Amazon' has a more sinuous groove inherent, something Battles might produce without all the theatrics; 'Pascal' has moments of reflection in the middle third that allows for the pummelling bookends to smash forth with more controlled venom; and the psychotropic freneticism of the closing title track is the weirdest yet most cathartic song on the album. It does take the foot off the neck a bit, so to speak, and it is essentially what enlivens Highlife and makes those moments of black tension and white-hot release so potent. The production is powerful and precise too, thanks to Ivan Lisyak (Narrow Lands, Tanned Christ) and Lawrence English.


Preorder Highlife here - it's a corker. Making hit the road in Australia to launch the album on these dates (which also features Sonic Masala Records band Danyl Jesu in the mix!):

5th September - Crowbar Brisbane

w/Sewers, Danyl Jesu vs Pale Earth + Nature Trails 

11th September - Black Wire Records, Sydney 

w/Marcus Whale (LIVE), Mere Women + BV (connect the dots)

12th September - The Public Bar, Melbourne 

w/Diecut, CAMP COPE + JAALA

Narrow Lands

Guten morgen kinder! Just thought I would throw this up here. It's the full set of Sydney noisehounds Narrow Lands from our festival back in June. Drunk In Brisbane - indeed. More news to come, but...let's do this again, yeah?

Zeahorse Pooling Their Brutal Strengths

I have to say that the success of a couple of my favourite Sydney bands recently have really surprised me. First seeing Yes I'm Leaving on Stereogum, now Zeahorse embarking on their US tour. Not that either of these bands don't deserve it - they are two of the heaviest, brutal and rad bands in Australia - but they have been bands slaving away in an environment that has never seemed to suit them. But then again, with the rise of likeminded creeps like Narrow Lands, Tanned Christ and Sour Cream in the city, the world is becoming a much more accepting place for festering scuzz. Now we see Zeahorse are releasing their Pools EP Stateside too (through Dine Alone Records). Zeahorse's sound is a bit easier to palate I suspect - their hardened riffs are given a shoegaze wash, softening the blows in just the right way - but a song like 'Pool' still maintains the power - it's a great song. And then 'Career' - well, that just rips in and doesn't really let up.





Zeahorse will be doing the US rounds in October. Good luck lads.

Brutally Populating Narrow Lands

Fresh out of the hellwaters that fork from the fiery rivers of Tenzenmen Records and Octopus Pi comes Sydney band Narrow Lands' Popular Music That Will Live Forever. It may surprise some to introduce the four-piece as such, seeing as their self-titled EP, whilst a decidedly dark affair, was a moody crawler with whiffs of post-punk inebriation; this record is much more bottom-end brutality. Heaviness pervades, the feedback much more condensed and foreboding, and whilst the tongue-in-check acerbic barbs still litter the record, this is more than cajoling the masses into the pit - this is lunging out of the shadows with a sledgehammer stuff. I mean, listen to the doom dirge that opens up awesomely-titled first track 'Triple J Drive Time Hit' - it's disturbing in all the right ways, ratcheting up the tension in a way that listeners instinctively know must burst in an avalanche of throat-tearing vitriol. It's electrifying stuff - you can see why they have shared stages with Yes I'm Leaving, for example - and a welcome addition to the burgeoning pantheons of modern Australian noise rock gems.

You can pre-order Popular Music That Will Live Forever here - it doesn't come out until Nov 20 - hopefully Sonic Masala or someone equally as rad can bring these guys kicking and screaming into the Queensland sunlight soon.