Song reviews

It might not be clever or catchy but “Heaving” by Melbourne rock trio KOTA has the powerhouse riffs and basic honesty to encourage inadvisable beer consumption and cause the older generation to time travel their heads back to the weightier days of the seventies.

Although I can see the potential in Bianca Bazin’s voice, “Heartbroken Fool” still seems like a box ticking exercise in making a plastic pop song for these identikit times. She needs a producer with some fresh musical ideas.

Electro pop gets trendy again and, with the emphasis on exorcising those retro analogue sounds, Kap Bambino use “Forever” to blast the ears of the coffee shop crowd with enough dystopian distortion to give them caffeine powered nightmares. Light me!

I nearly thought that “Awarewolf” was going to be some sort of country song but, instead, the guitars took the song off on a rather different, almost post rock, journey into the psyche. That makes Ferri and The Fevers are worthy of a listen.

Some might regard “9 -5” as practically a textbook case of how to stay within the boundaries of the modern day processed pop song yet TAPES nonetheless have a notable appeal as neither melody nor musical extemporisation has been forgotten in their search for chart success. Bravo!

Synth pop appears to be in thing these days and BLYOLK jumps right on the trendy bandwagon with “Dogspeed”. Fortunately, he knows it is all in the attitude and, with dramatic intent, he wrenches the song from the sequenced backing track.

“Tel Aviv” might well be a by the numbers indie pop song, but The Lighthouse add more than enough summery fizz to make their song one that might even make you smile even when it is raining outside.

Full of pulsating synthetic goodness, HEZEN rumbles your speakers with her song “Bring Your Alibi” but she so confidently handles tempo changes that you are never in any doubt that her soul is not that of the music machine.

“Red Dress” is another pleasingly commercial song from Maya Killtron and, with all the right nineties retro influences in there to compliment her rootsy and purposeful voice, the song is nothing less than a lesson in energy transfer.

I thought that “One” might just be another song from the pop music playbook of today yet there was more than that here with Natalie Lynn adding more than enough impetus to make it all seem both real and commercial at the same time.

You can’t fault a band for following the looped and sequenced path to stardom. It is true that Reptile Room follow the yellow brick with due diligence yet there remain enough poetry in the lyrics to make “Crown” appeal to both the art house crowd and the coffee shop kids.

You can’t go far wrong with a bit of electro pop in my less than humble opinion and Sacre hit the mark with their song “09:00PM The Coconut Bar”. Despite being self consciously stylish, the escapee from the sampled dance floor ticks all the trendy boxes whilst keeping your attention. Super cool!