Anna Calvi: Out of the attic

                                                                                 Photography: Kate Garner

14 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

Anna Calvi offers one of those rare, beautiful moments in music journalism when speaking with an artist is much like listening to their music. In this London musician’s case, she is as refined and seductively gothic as her eponymous 2011 debut.

Since the release of her album just over a year ago (through EMI’s Domino Records; after Bill Ryder- Jones from The Coral discovered her), Calvi has met the weight of early complimentary press with critical and commercial success. With the debut written and recorded in her parents’ attic over months of reclusive creativity, the now 30-year- old says it wasn’t an easy transition moving from the calm of homebound recording to tour buses and foreign festival stages.

“I did just focus on [recording] and didn’t do much else,” she half whispers. “So it was a bit of a shock to go from that to touring all the time, but it’s been nice to get out and see the world.”

With a degree in music and an understanding of stringed instruments which dates back to 1987, it’s surprising to hear Calvi speak of the label signing as if it’s on par with finding a twenty-cent piece, heads up. “I didn’t have to go ‘round to labels trying to get someone to find me,” she remembers. “I feel lucky that I didn’t have to do that because I think I would have found that really difficult. I don’t think it would be fun for anyone really, it’s not what you want to do as an artist.”

Having just finished touring with the Laneway Festival, Calvi successfully sent Australia’s proverbial jaw to the floor, as she seared feverishly through her spaghetti-western guitar solos with brazen assurance. However, her personal expectations are minute compared to the feted comments from ambient magnate Brian Eno, the Mercury Prize Chair of judges and fashion houses Gucci and Karl Lagerfield; these days her suppositions are similar to those a mother would ingrain before her child’s first school concert. “I do have expectations,” she says. “Just day-to-day expectations. To just sing well and perform well; I always try to do my best.”

If it’s hard to believe her eager hopes stop behind a closed stage curtain, it is only because of extols which have likened her excepted trajectory to Patti Smith’s or her musical intuit to that of Joanna Newsom. “Brian Eno gave me a lot of support and is really positive about my work and that’s a thing that I hold very dear to me,” says Calvi. “I don’t feel pressure, I just felt relieved that someone liked what I was doing, that was the main thing. “I’ve definitely expressed my gratitude; we’re in touch and I let him know how everything’s going.”

Calvi is of course, incredibly humbled, but in her effacing arch she says, “Everyone’s got an opinion and it’s up to the individual who’s opinion matters; but everyone’s got something to say about something and it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.”

The former advocacy from Eno has since blossomed into a friendship of sorts where the now famous Smith comment is now a distant treasured memory.

“It’s really sweet and wonderful that he said that but it’s more just the conversations that we’ve had together about music and about what I’m doing that really mean a great deal to me,” she explains. “He said that it was ‘Full of romance and intelligence,’ and ‘What more could we want from art?’”

Calvi’s relationship with the culture that adores her is complex and ambiguous, but the disconnect is fitting. Years of both classical and contemporary training teamed with her ability to pair sinewy, gothic elements with her charmingly subtle mien have incited both wonderment and a litany of comparisons. Her favourite so far is that of Korean- American singer Susie Suh. “I find it funny because I’ve never heard any of her records and I don’t know any of her songs,” she fusses.

“It’s really bizarre to be compared to someone that you don’t know, that’s kind of funny...I haven’t had a chance to [listen to her music],” she adds. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

The current buzz surrounding Calvi is focused on album number two, however she remained tight- lipped regarding any details. Besides the fact much of her time since her debut has been spent on tour, the material which has formed is apparently far too embryonic. “Because it’s such early days I don’t feel ready to talk about it yet. But it will be different from my last album,” she says firmly. “It’s still forming in my mind so I don’t feel ready to talk about it to people.”

This month will see Calvi gallivanting across Japan before she returns to London to write new material. With the hysteria that comes akin with touring, a step back into self-elected solitary is just the creative bubble she needs to fuel the merciless fire in her belly. Whether she’ll rent a studio is still undecided but in any case a flight back to the nest is always an option for this songbird. “I know that I can always go back to the attic if I want, which is nice.”

Ten bands worth catching at Soundwave 2012

13 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

Forget the headliners, TMN have put together our top picks for punters who don’t mind sacrificing a toilet break or ditching the drink line to catch a band that’s slightly under the radar but well worth your time.

Chimaira

The Ohio sextet are one of the most tenacious bands in classic American metal. 12 years together spawned five albums and some of the most brutally unique live shows the genre has ever seen. Those who caught them in 2010 when they headlined a national tour will know only too well the visual assault awaiting Soundwave attendees.

Attack! Attack!
The Welsh four-piece with the spectacled frontman make their Soundwave debut this month with their dogmatic concoction of surging guitar lines and radio-ready choruses.

Neil Starr (lead vocals, guitar), Will Davies (bass), Ryan Day (guitar, vocals) and Mike Griffiths (drums) released their sophomore effort The Latest Fashion in September 2010 so true zealots will know every single line without any awkward hangs of the head in the parts not remembered verbatim.

Hellyeah

This is one supergroup to catch if your idea of metal is the by-product of that creepy beardo who consistently threatened to commit suicide on his MySpace account.

The Baltimore five-piece started as a side project for members of Pantera, Mudvayne, Damageplan and Nothingface who chased a new path with spirit-lifting hard rock. Hellyeah were first famed for being the band that got drummer Vinnie Paul back behind the kit (in 2004 Paul lost his brother and Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell after he was shot onstage), but now it’s their shows that draw the most attention.

Guitarist Tom Maxwell put it quite nicely when he said: “We want them to walk away saying, ‘We just saw Hellyeah on a Monday night but it felt like a fucking Friday. It’s Tuesday morning, I feel like shit, I’m hungover, I don’t know who this chick is in my bed, and their fucking music is still ringing in my ears’!”

Times Of Grace

Take the old-school aggression from Killswitch Engage, mix in beautifully emotive guitar lines written from a hospital bed and you have New York duo Times Of Grace.

Killswitch’s guitarist Adam Duktiewicz called upon the band’s former vocalist Jesse Leach while recovering from emergency back surgery in 2007. Asking him to sing and write lyrics for the time-killer project resulted in newly-birthed debut The Hymn Of A Broken Man. It’s catchier than their common thread’s releases but still hits you like a punch in the jugular on a Sunday morning. Whether you’re a Killswitch fan or your eyes are seeking a new view, this band is well worth an early rise on Soundwave morning.

Thursday

Whether you spent the noughties listening to the seminal post-punk from Thursday or you just see Understanding In A Car Crash as a guilty pleasure, if you don’t catch their set this Soundwave or at their sideshow with Circa Survive, you’ll never see them live again. After thirteen years and six albums the New Jersey outfit are calling it quits.

Dream On Dreamer

The Melbourne six-piece have done well to follow in the footsteps of fellow Australian band the Amity Affliction; their take on post-hardcore weaved with keyboard synths and clean choruses has earned them support tours with the likes of Emmure, Deez Nuts and more recently Avenged Sevenfold. Anticipate a tight set from these boys for it’s their live shows that are now turning heads.

Steel Panther

It’s not an easy feat mixing heavy metal with comedy, but these spandex-donning sleazeballs are set to cover the best in hair metal as well as a few even more ridiculous originals.

Onstage strippers, harnessed crowd surfing and Spinal Tap-esque hair-metal solos will make for one of the most visually satiating performances of the day. Steer clear if you’re feeling sensitive however, Steel Panther will most definitely pull out a few sly digs at Aussie culture – but mockery is the highest form of flattery in this case.

You Me At Six

Meeting the demands of their Australian pop-punk-loving fans, You Me At Six have been taking regular sojourns from their hometown of Surrey for years now. Their latest album Sinners Never Sleep made our very own top 30 in the charts and their single Loverboy has been a mainstay on Radar Radio since its October release. Seamless vocals, lyrics sans world issues and pure, early post-hardcore riffs will make for one of the most fun 40 minutes of your afternoon.

Circa Survive

Circa Survive were backed by blind faith from the very beginning; signed to Atlantic Records before they had even played a show, the Pennsylvanian quintet have since proved the risk’s payoff tenfold.

Beginning as a project of revolt to the major label corporations, Saosin’s Anthony Green was bound for the Universal Music offices to ink a record deal when he decided to take a less commercial route.

Touring their psychedelic prog-rock with the likes of Vans Warped Tour and Coachella, Circa Survive now have four albums and hundreds of shows under their belt; all whilst sticking it to the proverbial man. This is one band worth a look in if only to applaud them for their integrity, oh, and to thank them for not choosing previously rejected band name Cicada Survive. 

Enter Shikari

This English four-piece come in handy for that time in the day when you want to mix metal, dubstep and your anti-government aggression (around 9ish). Set to premiere new tracks from forthcoming album A Flash Flood Of Colour, this band is opinionated, destructive and ear-drum destroying; what more could you want from a band while you inhale a dirty slice of over-priced pizza in the dark?

 

 

Live Review: Incubus

                                                        Photo credit: Ken Leanfore

06 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

Friday February 3
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, NSW

Whether Sydney fans bought tickets to a sold out Hordern Pavilion in the hopes of a wistful Incubus set list or simply for a chance to catch frontman Brandon Boyd in the flesh, Friday night’s performance sated fans from both ends of the spectrum.

Boyd held his vintage-style mic in a way that made it disappear inside his fists, while guitarist Mike Einziger, keyboardist/DJ Chris Kilmore, bassist Ben Kenney and drummer Jose Pasilas seared into the anarchy of A Crow Left of the Murder single Megalomaniac. Through a powerful Pardon Me, and new track Adolescents, Boyd performed like the 24-year-old who jolted about the Big Day Out main stage twelve years ago. Kenney held his guitar high on his chest and during Kilmore’s indulgent interlude for the title track of If Not Now, When? he offered quirky side steps and foot stomps. Over the band’s more than two-decade career, their alt-rock has remained mostly unchanged, much like their variegated appearances and influences.

Eight tracks in and Boyd finally greets his minions. “Hey, how we doing so far boys and girls?” he says before Talk Shows On Mute. You don’t attend an Incubus gig for between-track banter; his impressive rap styling on the bongos during Vitamin and his zombie walk (with his shirt over his head) before In The Company Of Wolves were enough to let the set breathe.

2006 Light Grenades track A Kiss To Send Us Off saw Boyd placate the crowd with his now ritualistic shirt removal; some fans followed his lead as bras flew onstage. The ingenious weaving of The Doors’ Riders On The Storm with Are You In? not only cemented talk of the ‘70s psych-rockers influence but also tied in beautifully with the dark, soaring track.

During Nice To Know You, an over-zealous crowd member managed to jump the barricade onto the stage, but that’s as far as he got as three beefy security guards dragged his skinny frame offstage, marking the only fail of the night.

The band’s breakout tracks Drive and Wish You Were Here were saved for last, with Einziger tucking in his chin for a Drive guitar solo (which the crowd cheered audibly over) and Boyd introducing a maraca, which was discarded before the second chorus in Wish You Were Here.

The unsurprising encore came complete with three surprises: The Original, Magic Medicine and fan-favourite A Certain Shade of Green. The step back into early-work was more than just a welcome time warp; Incubus may now be a seasoned, more mature band in every way but they hold the same arduous fire in their chiselled bellies that stopped us in our tracks two decades ago.

Chimes Of Freedom: TMN's top 10

Chimes Of Freedom: TMN's top 10

02 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

In reviewing the over-80 artists who contributed to Amnesty International’s Bob Dylan tribute compilation, TMN may run the risk of boring our readers or at least taking up their full lunch hour. Although Chimes Of Freedom’s variegated 75-strong tracklisting is as worthy as it is surprising we have instead decided to offer our top 10 (in no particular order or preference).

Seal & Jeff Beck – Like A Rolling Stone
This is what happens when you team one vocal heavyweight with one of the finest guitar masters of our time and offer up your first born for it to work. Bringing the 1965 track down a tempo, Seal holds back his vocal adeptness while Beck offers up multiple backing sounds with plucking perfection. The pair have turned a track about the crash and fall of a high society debutante into a feel good song filled with effervescent bursts; vocals and guitar lines dance with each other as if Beck is a second harmonising vocalist.

Dave Matthews Band – All Along the Watchtower
The Charlottesville rockers have been perfecting their version of Dylan’s 1967 hit since they performed it at the ’99 Woodstock; perhaps this is why it’s been included as one of the few live covers, as the four-piece prove they haven’t lost any of the earnest collegiate-grunge they represented so well in the ‘90s, and throughout their multiple versions of the song.

Dave Matthews’ slight yodelling and hoarse yells are more lusty than Dylan’s folk-hued tone but that’s precisely what makes the track so intense; direct imitation is considered naff here and the Dave Matthews Band have varnished the track with their trademark bluegrass sound whilst still bowing down to the legend that is Dylan.

K’NAAN – With God On Our Side

The Somalian hip hop artist’s cover may be one of the most brief, but how sweet it is to prove Dylan’s longevity and relevance with this reinvigorated play on his words and integrated funk.

Ke$ha – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
If there were ever a Bob Dylan cover artist to anger his disciples it would be the insincere 24-year-old who has marked her career with trash-pop ditties. But as she sings the track through tears and strained articulation, Ke$ha’s amicable delivery teaches us to keep our minds open. In an interview, Ke$ha said the song choice was “tragically relevant”; she used her transition from pedestrian to superstar to relate to the track about a lover’s farewell.

She presents one of the biggest jaw droppers due to the newfound respect 21st century pop haters should now offer the singer, whose usual stimulus stems from drunken nights and boyfriends who won’t go to the ‘bum zone’ with her; a much-needed awakening for both sides of the fence.

Miley Cyrus – You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Perhaps the second most-welcome surprise comes in the choice to include 19-year-old Disney-star-turned-pop-singer, Miley Cyrus. For anyone who managed to forget her father Billy Ray’s mulleted boot-scooter Achy Breaky Heart, here lays a sweet reminder that not all influences are wasted in ill-opted mimicry. From Hannah Montana to pure, lilting lyricist, the one track that could scare Dylan zealots away may be the one to keep them hooked further.

Sinéad O’Connor – Property Of Jesus
Taken from Dylan’s 1981 record Shot Of Love, the Irish singer gets righteous as she brings her effortless tone to a rarely used, almost-shout. This cover is an idoneous fit for O’Connor as she wrote of the honour in her online blog in the section entitled Letters To Bob Dylan.

“…You believed in Jesus. And consequently, as a child when I was ordered to lie naked on my back and open my body wide on floors, to be stamped on, your voice would come to my mind ‘God don’t make promises that he don’t keep’.”

Rise Against – Ballad of Hollis Brown
It would have been easy for the post-hardcore band to call upon experience and churn the Ballad of Hollis Brown through the punk cogs to offer up a hard, fast rendition, but the quartet clearly revelled in this challenge. Veering into folk territory and pushing boundaries well outside their comfort zone, this eleven verse ballad without a chorus couldn’t have been more against-type for Rise Against, but by keeping the content and delivery dark and implementing a few nods to Sonic Youth, the Chicago band have recorded the most eruptive track in the collection; one which has not only done the song justice but which will reposition them in the minds of post-hardcore sceptics.

Adele – Make You Feel My Love
Recorded live at WXPN, this version was made famous in 2008 when after a recommendation from manager Jonathan Dickins, Adele included the track in her debut, #19. Her worldwide success since has been based on her impeccable ability to command a room with just her voice and a piano. This stripped back rendition is as touching and believable as the original.

Mariachi El Bronx – Love Sick
The Bronx’s side project have ditched their hardcore acoustic ethos for an even bigger oxymoronic number. The LA band’s version of Love Sick comes complete with Texan tinges and Mexican horns and strings. One of the more recent tracks from the Dylan catalogue (released in 1997) Mariachi El Bronx still managed to take Love Sick that notch further, stamping their trademark punk instrumentals and traditional Mexican influence throughout the track for a reinvention as honoured as it is relevant.

The Gaslight Anthem – Changing of the Guards
Most renowned for their blatantly proud similarities to Bruce Springsteen, the New Jersey band take on Changing of the Guards with an invigorated groove. The choice to affix an addition riff could have come across grandeur-seeking but instead provides a bridge from their Spingsteen-Americana to Street Legal-era Dylan.

Dylan waived the publishing rights to his entire catalogue, while all artists, musicians, engineers, producers and others involved in the recording worked for pro bono. In other words, don't pirate this record.

Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honouring 50 Years of Amnesty International is available internationally now.

Big Day Out 2012: Sydney

                                                                        Photo credit: Ken Leanfore

27 January 2012

by Poppy Reid

For a day that was picked to be shadowed by dark clouds and intermittent rain, Big Day Out Sydney hosted a fair few sunburnt schnozzes and Southern Cross tattoos. Although this reviewer didn’t personally catch Byron hardcore band Parkway Drive, they deserve a mention for the buzz that followed their fans from the Blue Stage where they performed to The Amity Affliction’s set at Essential Stage.

“You should have seen it!” said one zealot. “This one guy came out of the pit with his bone sticking out of his leg.” Clearly their absence spent touring the UK and Europe did nothing to dilute their strong, raucous, native fanbase.

Onlookers over at the Essential Stage couldn’t have regretted their wares more as their sweat soaked through the wardrobe choices from the darker end of the colour spectrum. Opening with popular single I Hate Hartley the crowd was hesitant to meet the energy lead by frontmen Joel Birch and Ahren Stringer, however by third track Dr. Thunder a circle pit was emanating violent responses and a few interesting scissor kicks from one Where’s Wally? advocate. The Sydney sun matched Birch’s aggression and while he admitted he wasn’t the best at between-track banter, the short seven-track set didn’t allow for much more than the precise melodic hardcore they proffered. The breakdown in final track Youngbloods saw the circle deepen as far back as the sound desk. One kid walked out holding his bloodied face as ribbons of red dripped thick through his fingers.

Odd Future’s performance in the Boiler Room stage was marred by sound issues; leader Tyler, The Creator’s microphone was clearly off for most of the set, and the volume settings were all askew, with murky beats and muffled vocals. Still, this didn’t hamper the band’s performance, nor their audience’s spirits. After all, Odd Future are seen by many to be a spectacle first and a musical act second. This early afternoon slot was ill-suited, but ultimately triumphant.

Over in the Hot Produce amphitheatre, King Cannons were expertly on track in their endeavour for a rockabilly-style revival. Their classic, slicked back quiffs and neck-high tattoos matched the mix of rock ‘n’ roll and indie punching out from their beaten guitars. The Auckland six-piece are one of EMI’s most recent golden children but with tracks like Take The Rock, Shoot To Kill and Teenage Dreams all executed with the fervour heard from the band on radio, the hype certainly matches the product. Although the band is still in its embryonic stages, they’ve already undertaken a slight lineup change; it looks as if previous drummer (and lone femme of the group) Lanae Eruera has been demoted to bongo and tambourine enthusiast. The new stickman, Dan McKay was pinched from Tasmanian rock band The Nation Blue and has more than earned his stripes with the kind of percussion you notice well before the obvious anchor tattoo on the bassist and resident tattooist Rob Ting’s forehead.

My Chemical Romance incited questionable dance moves and lyrical faux pas early as crowd members at the Orange Stage were over-zealous in broad daylight with their physical appreciation and Na Na’s for first track Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na). It would only disappoint if frontman Gerard Way didn’t show up with a new hairstyle; this time his theme was orange, his hair was orange, his sunburnt face was blushing with a reddish-yellow hue and he sipped on orange juice the entire set.

After breakout single I’m Not Okay (I Promise), Way proclaimed: “This is going to be the best crowd of the day, it may not be the biggest crowd but it’s going to be the best.”

Later in the New Jersey band’s set, Teenagers saw nostalgic long-time stalwarts dance as if the track was still directed at them; perhaps noticing how many of us had grown up with the band, or more likely just wanting to remind us of their longevity, Way thanked the crowd for sticking around to celebrate the anniversary of their decade together.

Behind us Tony Hawk flew between the sides of the half pipe while closing tracks Famous Last Words and Welcome to The Black Parade sawthe crowd lose all inhibition. A band once associated with the terms ‘emo’ and ‘sell out’ should now be seen as the perspicacious glue that managed to team together the gym junkie with nautical stars brazened down his back, the punkish tween with a Dora the Explorer backpack and the daisy duke-donning stunner in the cut-off wolf tank.

Soundgarden warmed the audience up for Kanye West; that is, if there was any crossover audience for the two acts at all. The juxtaposition between frontman Chris Cornell’s high-pitched, no-nonsense wailing and Kanye West’s overblown-yet-ornate stageshow demonstrates how far along the Big Day Out has come in terms of the breadth and depth of its lineup. The days of this festival being a strictly alternative fare are long gone, and while some may bemoan this change, the majority of punters have welcomed this evolution with open arms. As Kanye started his set from a cherry-picker, flew through two and a half hours of hit singles and treated the entire thing as a Broadway musical, it was apparent why the Big Day Out is a global highlight on the festival calendar. West’s set going overtime meant that a lot of punters missed Noel Gallagher, but there was something entirely appropriate about exiting to the worldbeating sounds of Don’t Look Back In Anger bouncing across Olympic Park Stadium.

The Used: Still vulnerable

31 January 2012

by Poppy Reid

In the early noughties, if you were feeling defeated and melancholic, he may have been the one who enunciated your pain, perhaps even saved your life. With insurmountable experiences that festered over years of drug abuse and self-loathing, Bert McCracken could write it better than you ever felt it.

The man behind The Used is now the happiest, most deucedly powerful he’s ever been; the 29-year-old married his Australian girlfriend last year and started an art production company called Anger Music Group; his bandmates are all in various stages of white picket fence normalcy and they’re set to release a fifth record in the coming months. It’s safe to say McCracken is a considerable deviance from the 22-year-old who released seminal album In Love And Death with The Used in 2004. The fervor that still surrounds the record is apposite upon knowledge of the devastating stimulus: after a predominantly drug-induced and homeless adolescence, McCracken’s ex-girlfriend and his unborn child both passed away the year prior to the album’s release.

“It’s really crazy for me to look back at that time of my life,” he says over the phone from his less humble, Hollywood home. “I was in a very, very, very vulnerable spot and I think that’s how I allowed myself to create those songs. It was a broken moment in my life and I’m glad that I have music to keep me going, and keep me sane, and probably keep me alive.”

For the first time without Warner Music’s sub-label Reprise Records, The Used will release Vulnerable (a negative-conjuring epithet, which means quite the opposite in this case) through their own Anger Music Group and Hopeless Records. The switch may have been Warner’s decision but for a band who used music as catharsis, another album with the major could have birthed another Artwork.

“I feel a bit of a disconnection with that record,” he admits of the 2009 album. “It’s a really negative record.”

McCracken says The Used were dropped last year along with several other acts and top-level executives when “their company fell apart to pieces”; but not before a series of quarrels with label-heads throughout the recording of Artwork.

“We had quite a few songs that I really enjoyed on the record and after they ended up putting their two cents in and changed the sound of a song, or changed my words ,it just became like ‘well fuck this song,’ and I was really not into it anymore.” McCracken says the label’s ‘two cents’ reached as far as blatant requests to ready them for commercial radio. “Towards the end of our time at Warner they were actually asking me not to swear. ‘Instead of saying you’re full of shit you should say you’re full of it’,” he laughs at both the concept and his imitation. “It got messy toward the end, out of resentment for a lot of things that maybe I had done.”

It was a bitter-sweet departure for The Used however; Warner took the option to back record number five and paid them to start writing, after breaking their deal with the band Warner were forced to pay out the contract. “They kind of screwed themselves on the way out...they paid for our new record,” chirps McCracken, indulging in his last laugh.

With a tight grip on The Used’s business reins, McCracken seems to have overtly suppressed the loose cannon we’d come to almost expect to vomit onstage at every show. But although he professes he has “no inspiration to go out and do heroin or smoke crystal or anything like that,” he does admit to still having an addiction. “Being addicted to drugs is being addicted to drugs,” he explains. “But I don’t do drugs so I think that things do get easier as time goes on.”
Stumbles off the proverbial rails can be expected but when McCracken literally fell offstage at the Musnik Tattoo & Music Festival in California in May last year, breaking his elbow meant prescribed painkillers for three months. Remarkably, what would normally send most into a dilatory, unreliable stupor instead lead to a creative burst and actually sped up the album process.

“I knew that I was eating way too many pain pills and feeling, looking, acting unhealthy,” he confesses. “That was my time to shine right there, and that’s what sparked this whole creative movement that finished this record in two weeks rather than another nine months.” Stylistically, the movement couldn’t have started more different than the first stages of the last four records. Instead of guitar, drum or bass beginnings, each track on Vulnerable spawned from a synthesiser, with instrumentals added later. McCracken is adamant the new release won’t borrow at all from its predecessor but instead from their debut.

“It absolutely holds the whole emotional vibe of the first record, and that wanting to be free and to break away. I think that that’s really what this record Vulnerable’s about; it’s for everyone who was picked on growing up or who is still being picked on, it’s for all the outcasts, the kids who aren’t as cool as the kids who think they’re cool; the real cool kids, the music fans.

“[Being vulnerable] is actually a positive thing. Those moments in life where you allow yourself that vulnerability are the moments when you fall in love or you succeed like you’ve never succeeded. Dare to dream and really follow that dream, that’s what vulnerable means to me.” - This from the man who called for his listeners to take his life in 2004 (re: Take It Away).

The Used are healthier, more gratified versions of the band they were in 2001 or even 2009, “we all have our shit together a lot more,” he laughs. It would only seem trite if McCracken continued to preach of his depression from his Hollywood home, and although many fans still hold the band’s early work in a protective choke-hold, Vulnerable’s intentions and maintained significance should satiate their zealots.

“As human beings we’re so much stronger than these things that seem to be controlling us and it doesn’t have to be drugs it could even be bad relationships. “I think if people dare to take a step in the right direction, you build some momentum and you can really have a positive life if you want. I’m not talking like super positive, I hate people that are happy all the time.”

Live review: Arctic Monkeys, Sydney

                                                                      Photo credit: Yael 'Yaya' Stempler

13 January 2012

by Poppy Reid

Thursday January 12
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney, NSW

Protruding above the packed sea of Arctic Monkeys’ fans are thin, white, shoulder-mounted bodies bounding up and down at sporadic intervals. This gleeful show of affection at a sold out Hordern Pavilion isn’t anything too out of the norm - except for the fact they’re mostly male and beautifully representative of the culture surrounding the band they’ve come to see.

For almost a decade now, the Sheffield band and their playfully charismatic linchpin, Alex Turner have pre-empted music and fashion trends for our own kin to snatch up like a floral blouse at a vintage sale.

After a two-year wait since their 2009 tour with the Big Day Out, it’s any wonder Sydney was forced to host two shows. Their fourth release last year saw the quartet unveil a new sound altogether, not out of character for the band but surprising as Turner managed to turn his youthful indiscretions into intriguing and well-received beat-pop with Suck It And See.

From opening track and first 2011 single Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair, the Arctic Monkeys delivered with skilful emergence, enough bass distortion to remind you you’re at a concert and not listening with the luxuries you hear in the studio version, and a drummer (Matt Helders) who’s percussion glued the set together with humble precision.

Cheeky tracks like Teddy Picker and Brainstorm were celebrated with each lyric mirrored back at them verbatim, with equal prowess. “Thank you Sydders!” shouted Turner in his brogue accent. “How’s everybody downstairs? I said, how’s everybody downstairs?” He smooth-talked us a bit further before A View From The Afternoon and 2005 breakout single I Bet you Look Good On The Dancefloor.

The more zealous crowd members were treated to Evil Twin, a Suck It And See B-side, which should have made the grade and later a mesmerising organ introduction chimed in for Pretty Visitors where Turner ditched the guitar but sadly stayed put and didn’t float on his fans.

The final track, When The Sun Goes Down was dedicated to Frontier Touring’s tour coordinator Michael Harrison; the first of their three-song encore, Suck It And See was dedicated to R.E.M and the final offering, 505 saw support act Miles Kane make a cameo. With all the correct tribute and championing-bases covered, Arctic Monkeys’ sweat-soaked, smoke-blanketed fans were left with new-found respect and new hair-cut ambitions for the unofficial dukes of indie.