Music – Reviews Archive

Stylish songstress Kiyomi Vella took a different route to success through reality talent show The Voice, a pathway many vibrant, young Australians are discovering to help kick-start their music careers. A distinctive voice with hints of pop, jazz and soul, as well …

I sometimes wonder if artistic director Paul Dyer chooses his troupe and soloists on the basis of good looks. The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (ABO) is a cut above the usual aesthetic standards of classical ensembles.  But maybe their palpable cheerfulness just lends …

Days have slowly been getting shorter, mornings have been getting colder and I’ve been pressing the snooze button on my alarm far more than I should; winter is coming. It’s appropriate that folk black metal band ­Ifing’s debut album, Against This Weald, …

Benjamin Hauptmann is a performer who quietly, but forcefully, demands an audience’s attention through his masterful solos and lush atmospheric textures. His voice is always one to be heard and his total command over his guitar sounds is a thing to be …

Every Easter, Bluesfest brings an influx of great international artists to the country to play for those willing to make the pilgrimage to Byron Bay. If you’re lucky and you’re in Sydney, most of those artists will come down for a sideshow …

I’ve always enjoyed the use of bowed instruments in rock and metal. They instill a sense of grandeur like no other instrument can, whether it be the quirky art rock mishap of The Red Paintings, the melancholic doom metal of Kauan, the …

Bands like Terminus make me wish I had taken up an instrument much earlier in life. I was initially pretty impressed by their self-titled debut, and even more so when I found out that at the time of its release (October last …

Italians are responsible for quite a few of my favourite things: sumptuous wines, indulgent cuisine and eminent suits. With their debut album, Awaken, Amouth have proved Italians are also pretty damn good at writing post metal. Awaken certainly is an interesting beast. …

Like most metalheads, I love a good guitar solo. No matter whether it’s death, black, progressive, post, sludge or folk, I’d call it a hallmark of the genre. What I dislike is self-indulgent playing that serves only to showcase a musician’s technical …

Outside it was a grey, hostile, traffic snarled, drizzly Sydney evening but here in the City Recital Centre it was warm, golden and all at peace. I felt all my angst, peak hour jitters and parking station traumas drop away like moldy …