To The North

To The North Brisbane are a four-piece math rock/post-hardcore band from Brisbane, Australia that formed around 2007. They released a handful of EP's and one LP between 2007 and 2015. Members also play in Apparitions, though To The North is still technically active, continuing to play the occasional shows including a festival appearance this month with Blind Girls. Sonically, this band plays noodling, mathy, and angular riffs with clean (or semi-clean guitars) with midwest emo inflections in the vein of Braid or Minus The Bear, with an intense spoken-shouted vocal delivery that recalls Bear vs Shark. If you're new to this band, I'd suggest either Landscapes for something more emo-y or their full-length Lustre for something a little more unique and tightly refined, but ultimately everything here is solid. Enjoy.

Landscapes (2007)

1. Intro

2. Matinees And Make Believe

3. Nights Like These

4. Behind The Paranoia

5. Drift Away

6. Trapdoors

Ohana/To The North (2008)

1. Ohana - Bleed Ideals

2. To The North - Harms Way

Note: To The North track only

To Work And Not Feed (2009)

1. We Are Not Ashamed

2. Cells

3. If Knowledge Was A Rite Of Passage You Would Be A Fucking Genius

4. Pistol Kids

Indiscretion (2010)

1. Indiscretion

2. No Alibi

3. Lustre

4. This City

5. Pistol Kids (live)

Lustre (2011)

1. Release The Brakes

2. No Alibi

3. Doubt The Shadow, Not The Sun

4. Clear Signal

5. Soft Light Through Plain Glass

6. Rescue And Return

7. Indiscretion

8. Progress Broke The Saddle

9. To Question The Moment

Departure (2015)

1. Departure

2. Escape Artist

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Love Like... Electrocution

Love Like... Electrocution were a six-piece screamo band from Adelaide, Australia that were active from 2002 to 2005. They first released an EP, which was eventually included in full on their only full-length, a self-titled album put out that same year. Besides that, their only released material was a demo and tour split. They toured quite a bit in Australia, but never beyond that. Members of this band were also in St. Alban's Kids. Sonically, this band brought an insatiable energy to every song, with a unique blend of emoviolence and post-hardcore elements. It was chaotic, but the guitars wind around each other with technical precision, matching the dynamic that their two vocalists also brought to the table, with blends of screams and straight singing all in the mix. If you're a fan of bands including Kodan Armada, Spirit Of Versailles, or Hot Cross, definitely check this out, or at the very least their self-titled record. Enjoy.

She Was Red Hot (2002)

1. With Horses In Her Eyes, She Spat Like A Wildcat

2. Hunger Like Numb Toes On An Oslo Sidewalk

3. Das Plague (French For Germans)

4. This Charade Has Lasted While Past The Curtains Fall

5. The Tropics Of Cancer, Capricorn And A Smashed Face

6. The Graduate Walks With A Distant Gait

Love Like... Electrocution (2002)

1. We Only Fuck To Black Sabbath Vol. 4

2. Tips For Avoiding The Clap. 1. I Wouldn't Piss On A Scorpion If It Was On Fire

3. Das Plague (French For Germans)

4. With Horses In Her Eyes, She Spat Like A Wildcat

5. The Truth Of The Matter Is I Am Satan And On The Guitars We Have The Devils. This Is Devil Music

6. Hunger Like Numb Toes On An Oslo Sidewalk

7. The Tropics Of Cancer, Capricorn And A Smashed Face

8. I Might Have Shed a Tear for Him, but He's No Depardieu

9. This Charade Has Lasted Well Past The Curtains Fall

10. We've Built Our Tombs. Now Were Sleeping In Them

11. The Graduate Walks With A Distant Gait

Demo (2004)

1. Love Always, Your Dearest Klaus Kinski

2. We've Built Our Tombs, Now We're Sleeping In Them

3. Upon Recovering, From My Last Bout Of Governmentality

4. In Bed For Months With Sat. Night Fever

5. Domicile Conjugal (Up And Down, In And Out)

6. Drowning, In A Sea Of Pressed Shirts & Conscientious Suntans

Love Like... Electrocution/This Night Creeps (2004)

1. Love Like... Electrocution - Love Always, Your Dearest Klaus Kinski

2. Love Like... Electrocution - Drowning, In A Sea Of Pressed Shirts & Conscientious Suntans

3. This Night Creeps - Channel Surfed Our Way to Epilepsy

4. This Night Creeps - Surfboards In Indian Country

5. This Night Creeps - [Noise!]

Blind Girls - 3am TRACK PREMIERE

Gold Coast, Australia's finest screamo band Blind Girls are back and ready to blow minds with their upcoming LP Residue, due out November 13th. It's being released by Zegema Beach Records and the band themselves, with a physical release limited to 150 black 12"'s and 65 red cassettes. You can also catch them on their upcoming Japan tour, along with Sans Visage and Komusō (both also worth checking out). Pre-order info and tour dates can be found below. For now, I'm happy to share the second track from that album, titled "3am" today. 

"3am" is a minute-long flurry of cathartic vocals, feedback squeals, and furious guitars. The band manages to pack so much into its short runtime, immediately hitting the listener with dissonant, almost mathcore-esque guitar work and powerful drumming. They briefly delve into this almost melodic, somewhat melancholic passage (you'll know it when you hear it) before jumping right back into the fray of dissonance and shrieks. The brief pause of feedback is a genius tension-builder, giving them a bit of space before rocketing into a unified, heavy riff for the latter half of the song. Blind Girls are absolutely at their top of their game here, hitting a lot of technical highs with the face of chaotic distress. The vocals, instrumentation, and even the production here are enough to indicate that this new LP is going to one of the craziest released this year. Fans of bands like Lord Snow and Loma Prieta should especially take note. You can hear two more released tracks below, with the full album stream coming out a day before its full release via Heavy Blog Is Heavy.

Open Mind / Saturated Brain - "The Ghost In My Eye"

Apathy And Exhaustion - "Exertion"

ORDER 12"

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Blind Girls

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Camp Cope

Camp Cope are a three-piece indie/alternative band from Melbourne, Australia that got started in 2015. Their debut full-length came out last year, which has garnered nothing but incredibly positive attention. These eight tracks feature brilliant songwriting and lyricism that fans of Hop Along, P.S. Eliot, and Courtney Barnett will definitely dig. With one fantastic album under their belt already, they're definitely a band to look out for. They've been requested to death, so here it is, long overdue (as usual). Enjoy!

Camp Cope (2016)

1. Done

2. Flesh & Electricty

3. West Side Story

4. Lost (Season One)

5. Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams

6. Trepidation

7. Stove Lighter

8. Song For Charlie

Camp Cope/Cayetana (2017)

1. Camp Cope - Keep Growing

2. Cayetana - Mesa

3. Camp Cope - Footscray Statino

4. Cayetana - Trails

How To Socialise & Make Friends (2018)

1. The Opener

2. How to Socialise & Make Friends

3. The Face of God

4. Anna

5. Sagan-Indianna

6. The Omen

7. Animal & Real

8. UFO Lighter

9. I've Got You

Running With The Hurricane (2022)

1. Caroline

2. Running With The Hurricane

3. One Wink At A Time

4. Blue

5. The Screaming Planet

6. Love Like You Do

7. Jealous

8. The Mountain

9. Say The Line

10. Sing Your Heart Out

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Blind Girls

Blind Girls are a four-piece screamo band from Gold Coast, Australia that have been around since 2013. They play a fantastic style of screamo that blends the sounds of bands such as Beau Navire and La Quiete. It's aggressive and chaotic, yet still contains some hints of melody and technical prowess. This is highly recommended, and are one of the best modern screamo bands you'll hear. Enjoy.

Solace (2013)

1. Warmth of Love

2. Lament

3. Noose

Efflorescence (2014)

1. Never Now

2. Tomorrow's Design

3. Thorn Trail

4. Efflorescence

5. Cycles of a Last Memory

6. Black

7. Shy Moon's Grey Night

He Who Swallowed the Bloom (2015)

1. Foot in The Way

2. Anathema

3. Spoils of Rip

4. Stratus

5. Rudimentary Fold

6. Years in Grey 

Blind Girls/sans visage (2016)

1. Blind Girls - Sentient

2. Blind Girls - Silhouette Friends

3. Blind Girls - Grey Permanence

4. sans visage - Kyogen

5. sans visage - Sight

Residue (2018)

1. Breaths

2. 3am

3. Loss Forms a Sequence

4. Exertion

5. Visitant

6. The Ghost In My Eye

7. Dormant

8. Cherish

9. Discarded Pictures

10. Nightshade

11. Burial

The Weight Of Everything (2022)

1. Wish

2. Dissociating

3. The Shape of Harm

4. Memorial

5. Marionette

6. Bright Sadness

7. What Happens In Your Sleep

8. Robots Can't Tick Boxes

9. In Circles

10. You Will Learn To Feel Again

11. My Pain Is Not Your Convenience

An Exit Exists (2024)

1. Dissonance

2. Loveless

3. Blemished Memory

4. Less Than Three

5. Make Me Nothing

6. Pallid Mask

7. Closer To Hell

8. AI Generated Love Letter

9. Lilac

10. Death Of An Unsung Thought

11. ...It's Starting To Rain

12. Home Will Find Its Way

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Trophy Eyes

Trophy Eyes are a five-piece pop punk/melodic hardcore band from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia that formed in 2013. To be completely honest, I haven't listened to them much, so can't really comment on their sound. However, the pop punk/melodic hardcore blend is definitely evident, so if that sounds appealing, this band is probably up your alley. I'm mainly throwing them up on here now because I know a TON of people have been looking for this band, and 'tis the season of giving, haha. Enjoy!

Demo (2013)

1. Chacho

2. Personal Taste

Everything Goes Away (2014)

1. May 24

2. Cutting Teeth

3. Bandaid

4. Hourglass

5. Fortunate

Mend, Move On (2014)

1. My Name On Paper

2. Come Clean

3. Convalescence

4. Family Name

5. Responsibility And Structure

6. Best Man

7. In Return

8. White Curtains

9. Choke

10. Ugly Pattern

11. Penfold State Forest

Tired Hearts (2015)

1. Tired Hearts

Chemical Miracle (2016)

1. Chlorine

2. Counting Sheep

3. Nose Bleed

4. Heaven Sent

5. Rain On Me

6. Chemical

7. Breathe You In

8. Home Is

9. Miracle

10. Suicide Pact

11. Daydreamer

The American Dream (2018)

1. Autumn

2. Something Bigger Than This

3. Friday Forever

4. More Like You

5. A Cotton Candy Sky

6. You Can Count On Me

7. Broken

8. Tip Toe

9. Lavender Bay

10. Miming In The Choir

11. A Symphony Of Crickets

12. I Can Feel It Calling

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The Pitys

Band submission. The Pitys are a punk band from Melbourne, Australia. "For the album we aimed to harken back to a rawer, more exciting style of punk, drawing lyrically and musically from the charged style of those early 70's punk bands."

"We originally planned to record a four track EP but after managing to record the first four tracks in half a day, we realised that they may as well see how many tracks we can put down with the studio time we had booked, all up, we managed to record the entire nine track album in two and a half days, with two more days for mixing. The result is an album that is brimming with energetic excitement, hard hitting riffs and satirically sharp lyrics."

This is awesome, catchy but gritty, super energetic stuff with Jello Biafra or Lux Interior-level charismatic vocals. They manage to keep things consistent but exciting throughout, and pump out 9 great songs. Check it out, I'm definitely enjoying this.

Being An Embarassment (2013)

1. Happy After All

2. 51st

3. Melbourne Fix

4. Underdog

5. Made Of Plastic

6. Pious Punk

7. Doomed Generation

8. Single Click Activist

9. Really Wanna Hula Hola

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ISIYM

Band submission. ISIYM are from Melbourne, Australia, and they completely blew me away. Listening through their EP Pineapple Head through for the first time left me in complete awe. It's really refreshing to hear something that really pushes the boundaries of labels and conventions. The entire time they kept pulling out new ideas that kept things very interesting and engaging, with this constant sense of anticipation as to what they were going to do next. They'd go from guttural hardcore vocals to Beach Boys-esque harmonies, and incorporate elements of various genres including garage rock, post-hardcore, alternative rock, and post-punk. I suppose at their core they are a punk band, since they consistently deliver a very raw and energetic quality to every song. They go all out with that at some points, and other times fuse it with some very poppy and melodic sensibilities. Sometimes songs include both of these aspects. Their diversity is astounding, but their ability to execute these different dynamics is also done excellently. Their isn't any point on here that I feel like I'm listening to a different band or that they're forcing a part into their sound. It's all natural, and all awesome. I was kind of reminded of The Men (not that the two sound very much alike) because of this, since they're rooted in punk but are able to integrate many other sounds into the mix to keep things distinct and interesting. I would highly, highly recommend anybody checking this out. Seriously. You can download or buy it from their Bandcamp.

Pineapple Head (2012)

1. Untitled

2. Doomsday Preachers (Give Me The Shits)

3. Thought Eve

4. My Baby Monique

5. Adelaide

6. Fugue State

7. Paint Your Veins

8. Glass

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Elevator Talk

Band-submitted. Elevator Talk are a four-piece band from Melbourne, Australia. Their style of music is very akin to that of This Town Needs Guns, particularly their early stuff. The guitar parts are very complex and intricate, as is expected from a math rock band, but also melodic, much like the American Football/Owls-influenced component of TTNG. Elevator Talk does sound a lot like them, but they execute this sound so well that I don't ever get the sense that they're a gimmicky rip-off or anything of that sort. They pull it off amazingly well, I think, and everything is just spot-on. The vocals are also of particular note. They are female-fronted, and their singer brings a very unique aspect to the mix with her voice. It's very gentle and melodic as you would expect, but the actual tone of it is quite unique. There's a certain quality to it that I found somewhat unexpected for this style of music (perhaps because I immediately thought of the football, etc. singer and was kind of caught off guard, for whatever reason) but somewhat fits so exquisitely. It's deeper, I guess you could say, but not necessarily low. There's still a very feminine characteristic to it, but it sounds very full as well. Her voice also takes more influence from the indie aspect of things than the emo side, which I think has adds a whole other dynamic to the band's music that compliments it perfectly. This is a great EP, and I'm personally loving it. I would definitely and highly recommend checking it out, especially if you're into TTNG (in case you somehow didn't get that already, aha).

Elevator Talk (2013)

1. #1

2. #2

3. #3

4. #4

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