In summary: “Well done Anberlin, you’ve made one heck of a record.” Reviewing albums on first listen is always like flirting with disaster, what if it’s no good, but by no good what if it turns out to be a ‘grower’ and I’m not doing it justice by only reviewing it off the first listen?  These are the things to […]

“It was simple. We wrote 5 songs, with no pressures, no deadlines, no goals, no nonsense, and then recorded them mostly at my home studio. It was such a return to form, like we were making a record 10 years ago.” From Press Release: Over the last decade, The Swellers have taken their hard-edged, yet accessible style of punk to […]

“So as much as it’s been fourteen years away from Australia for the band, it’s been fourteen years of waiting by a lot of this eager crowd who loved every second of tonight’s show and I can tell you one thing it won’t be another fourteen before they’re back.” Sydney band ‘Ashes’ who won their place opening the night tonight […]

“It’s a perfect time to come back now, I’ve got a killer band, most of us have been together for nine years, this is the right time, this is the right record and we’re coming back to a pretty much sold out tour, it’s gonna be great, it’s gonna be awesome.” Everclear are back, even though they never went away. […]

“Tonight sums up what this band is all about, they’re metal, they’re bringing it back and if this crowd and those around the world have their way, it won’t be going away again in a hurry.” So, I’m pretty sure that the wigs outnumbered the real long haired males tonight but regardless, the fact that people have come in droves […]

“It’s supposed to have a communal atmosphere, I’m not going to turn up and play music to a bunch of heads staring at me and then just have a disconnect, I just want everyone to be involved you know?  It’s a party I want everyone to be a part of.” If you’ve never heard of Frank Turner, now’s a perfect […]

From Official Bio: HEART ATTACK is a Hard ‘n’ Heavy band from Greece dedicated to 80’s-early 90’s sound delivering dynamic but also melodic songs straight from the heart for those who care…They were formed back in the dawn of 2010 by singer George Drimilis (ex-Raging Storm) and Stergios Ntikos on drums. The line-up was completed when ?ichael T. (keyboards), George […]

Muse is one of those bands that are hard to categorise.  Simple as that and you know they are… are they rock?  Are they opera?  Are they electro?  Yeah, I know right?  So I’m calling Muse a new genre of music called Electrockera.  Here was have ‘The 2nd Law’ which is the their sixth as a band, each previous have […]

“We’re trying to make our weak points stronger, so we worked harder on becoming a melodic rock band and not only a melodic rock band but a good one, even a great one as well, we wanted to make the songs really, really great as I think we’ve got the songs in us.” Seventeen years as a band and with […]

In summary – “If you think you know Grinspoon, you probably don’t. This new album is fresh, it’s rockin’ and it’s relevant.” When you’ve been a band for seventeen years, it must be tough to keep yourself motivated, to come up with something fresh, yes many bands go through the ‘what do I want to be today?’ phase, but Australian […]

I remember seeing The Script back in 2008 when they came to Sydney on a promo tour in support of their debut album, playing in a small club to an attentive yet small crowd, just seeing them then you knew these guys had it. Now four years on and two albums and a couple of visits back since the debut […]

From Official Bio:  In 2012, Perth’s Chaos Divine are without peer in Australian metal. Their intricate and melodic brand is pregnant with a progressive ambition that challenges both fans and band members alike. Now, with a world of possibility before them, Chaos Divine in 2011 delivered The Human Connection – the band’s most accomplished album to date. While the driven […]

“If you don’t like it, listen to one song, give it a chance, if you don’t like it, throw a bottle at me and go and watch another band ha ha, but at least give me three minutes of your time and hopefully you’ll be in to it.” From Official Bio:  Whether they’re headlining, supporting or leading sing-alongs at festivals […]

“There’s songs in there and the meanings and stuff, we always like to put, not statements and stuff, but leave it so whoever is listening to it can either relate to it or kind of go I’ll take it in this way you know?  Have the listener think a bit rather than just be that kind of brain dead, mind […]

“I just love The Angels songs, I love the power of them, I love going and rocking out to them and I kind of had faith in the fact the people would feel the same way.  There’s a bit of negative reaction obviously, but on the main it’s been pretty well received.” When you put together the A list of […]

In summary: Say what you will about Hanson, but if you’re prepared to dismiss them simply for being Hanson then that’s fine, but you have just missed out on an amazing night of great songs, musicianship and harmonies. Standing outside The Enmore Theatre in Sydney tonight and watching the crowd enter was fun for me, as the predominantly female audience […]

“The first album was kind of written by mistake, the second album was written to follow up on the recorded success of the first and then between the second and third I’ve just done a million gigs, so the focus for me was very much was leaning live, and every track was written to be played live, which made them […]

From Bio: The Finest Hour are a 4 piece band based in Cleethorpes/Grimsby area of Lincolnshire, England. Drawing influence from Indie, Punk, Ska and Folk music, the band have toured extensively throughout the UK, covering The North and Midlands, London and Scotland taking in famous venues such as The Cavern Club in Liverpool, Half Moon in Putney, The Adelphi in […]

“The opening track ‘Lifestyle’ says straight up; “We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we keep it simple, we keep it real.” We’re just a bunch of friends hanging out playing music for the right reasons, tied by our common goals, we all want the same thing, we’re all on the same page and it’s just as simple as that.” […]

“We’ve just always done this kind of music and what we’ve always been in to since we were kids, the bands you’ve grown up on and stuff and there’s been times when guitars have been big and guitars haven’t been big…” When a band can make a debut album that sounds like they’ve been doing it forever, you get the […]

“To me Rock and Roll is where it starts, and it’s being able to think what is good and not sitting around asking what everyone else approves of, so I guess hopefully more people that don’t necessarily get what Hanson’s about get a chance to dig in a little.” Twenty years as a band and fifteen years since the song […]

Back in 1996, before YouTube, before Facebook, before My Space and come to think of it, before the internet was what it is today, I stayed up for hours to hear a song on the radio, a song that half the time never got back announced, and all I knew was that the lyrics “Reach down your hand in your […]

“I’d like to think it’s because we’ve got good songs, we play hard and we work hard, but I think for me, the bands that connect the most with me are the ones where there’s undeniable heart behind what they’re doing, and we do play that way.” ‘The Vaccines’ from London have only been a band for the best part […]

“It’s a high energy intense kick ass heavy metal show with a lot of fun, with a lot of very entertaining stuff, we are not too serious you know, we are serious but there will be so many moments where we are not serious at all which is why it is so entertaining.” From Bio: Since they formed in 1993, […]

In Summary: It’s like The Darkness set out to make an ‘all killer no filler’ type album with ‘Hot Cakes’ and they’ve done exactly that in my opinion. The Darkness are back. Were they missed? I think totally. The void that they left of that fun throwback retro rock sound and image was missing for far too long, but now […]

In Summary: “If more bands could make albums of this calibre then the charts and the world would be in a much better place.” Already loving the previous works of The Gaslight Anthem, I was excited when this record was coming and finally released. This is the bands fourth effort and as you’ll read below, in my opinion by far […]

From Bio:  For explosive Melbourne rockers House VS Hurricane, second album Crooked Teeth represents a sonic rebirth. Having made a name for themselves in Australia with steadily sold out shows and support slots with acts as diverse as Bullet For My Valentine, Enter Shikari and The Amity Affliction House Vs Hurricane cemented their reputation as the band to watch very […]

“Any art form whether it’s music or acting or anything, it has to grow, it has to change, it has to evolve and I think Country music is probably restricted a lot by things not wanting to change or people not wanting to change and actually the stigma of country music probably is something we fight against, when you say […]

“It’s crazy because we’re seven years in between records and that’s ridiculous, but it’s not that long to us, because we toured for two years on the last record and then we took three years off, completely off, then we started writing this record three years ago.  Seven years when you put it on paper it just looks so crazy, […]

In 25 words or less: “When you find that album that connects on first listen well then I think you’ve got something pretty special.” Versus The World have just released their new album, seven years after their debut, which has gotta be some record somewhere ha ha.  The good thing is, this is new band to me, I dig that […]