Every once in a while, a band comes along that sounds almost exactly like their logo and album artwork. This is one of those times. With a sound that falls somewhere between heavy psych and stoner rock, Perth’s Giant Dwarf deliver a world of fantastic riffs on this debut album. These guys have so obviously realised that it can be more effective to take influence from others and do that well, as opposed to presenting an odd mish-mash of more original sounds but end up with a record that’s going to be perhaps quite marginal. It’s resulted in a release that’s full of belters that fall somewhere between classic ‘Dopes’ era Monster Magnet and the more focused Queens of The Stone Age – pretty much guaranteed to please most listeners who loved stoner and space rock in the late 90s…and still find themselves craving some deep fuzz.
Tag Archives: aussie
The Church to make rare UK visit
Australian rock band The Church will be making a rare visit to UK shores in June 2019. The handful of scheduled gigs are to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their best known album, 1989’s ‘Starfish’, home to the cult hit ‘Under The Milky Way’.
More info about these reunion shows can be found in the press release below.
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DELUXE EDITION DREAMLAND: INXS – The Swing & Other Stories
During the late 80s and early 90s, INXS found themselves in the position of being one of the great arena filling rock-pop bands of the day.
Their 1987 world dominating ‘Kick’ album – boasting no fewer than five hit singles – was reissued in 2002 as a two disc deluxe edition, again in 2012 as a 3CD/DVD box set and yet again in 2017 as a modified version of the previous box, missing a few items but priced far more sensibly. Despite shifting a lot of album units, however, the rest of their back catalogue has been overlooked with regard to the deluxe reissue market.
FOX COMPANY – Hot Trash EP
Credited as playing “unapologetic rock ‘n’ roll”, on their 2018 EP ‘Hot Trash’, Sydney’s Fox Company certainly bring an impressive amount of swagger. They often favour loving homages to the past within their music, but they’ve obviously decided there would be no point in messing with an established formula. That seems quite sensible when the 70s and 90s rock styles are as brilliantly played as they are here.
BLACK HEART BREAKERS – Rotting Out EP
Formed in 2014, things seemed to come together quickly for Australia’s Black Heart Breakers. Within the first few years of their existence, the punk/punk ‘n’ roll quartet had already opened for punk royalty Marky Ramone, Ruts DC and Stiff Little Fingers. Such good fortune allowed the band to fly halfway across the world to record their 2018 EP at the legendary Blasting Room studios, owned by Descendents’ Bill Stevenson. So much material to come from that studio has a great, full sound and ‘Rotting Out’ is no exception. Given the place of its recording, it might not be a complete coincidence that the EP shares its name with a Descendents track, though perhaps no further connections should be sought.