Children Collide, Howl, TeenArcher @ The Zoo (10/09/2010)

Mon 20th Sep, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Upon ascending The Zoo staircase, Sydney noise-punk purveyors Teen Archer are headway into their set. Anyone would think the trio had been lifted right out of 1992 by the way they shriek into the microphones and create walls of pummeling distortion. Their sound contains elements borrowed from bands like Black Flag and The Stooges. The visual spectacle is equally as thrilling as the guitarist and bassist convulse in fits of rage. At times, their gratuitous use of this distortion and feedback adds to some convolution. Whilst it seems inane to critique a noise rock band on structure, there must be some order in the chaos and on the odd occasion this is not the case. Even with these minute flaws, Teen Archer absolutely decimate as openers.

Ballarat sextet Howl start their set with Blackout. Though it would be easy to be pessimistic about Triple J throwing them in the deep end with Unearthed, the group are surprisingly accomplished, given that they look like they’ve only just emerged from puberty. On that note, both guitarist Michael Belsar and lead vocalist Lachlan Morrish sport hefty screams with no signs of blow outs or weakness. Belsar in particular is a born performer the way he commands the stage. The lads cleave through their set of grating, organ driven punk numbers. The guitarists venture their concussing bodies into the mosh and the crowd gathers around them gawking with amusement. Despite their band ‘uniforms’ looking cringe-worthy and the backing vocals showing a slight immaturity, they are merely minor imperfections. Wiping the floor with bands almost three times their age, Howl are punching above their weight – and succeeding.

Children Collide don their guitars to a rapturous applause before the delay drenched riffs of Chosen Armies ring throughout The Zoo, releasing a mass outpouring of energy by audience members. Johnny Mackay’s guitar is held aloft for most of the song and he even plucks the strings with his teeth. The energy in their set is more of a controlled burn compared to their eruption at Troubadour show during the Big Sound Live showcase, obviously due to the hour long time slot. The songs crescendo up to monstrous wads of riffage and the band members thrash around the stage, converging on each other.

Theory of Everything has only been released for a few weeks and judging from the exhilaration of the crowd, fans have more than taking a liking to the new material. Complacency No Vacancy, Speed of Sound and Seven Forks are already met with as much enthusiasm as older material like Across The Earth and Skeleton Dance, despite not having as much time to prove their worth. Farewell Rocketship becomes one giant sing-along and Johnny Mackay is given a reprieve from vocal duties by the audience.

Mackay is playing right into the hands of his stoner stereotype, at one point humming a few lines from Tame Impala’s Desire Be, Desire Go, taking a playful stab at the band. He loiters around the microphone in a haze for most of the songs, but during the more chaotic parts, he hurls his guitar around like a roman gladiator and leaps out onto a sea of hands. Drummer Ryan Caesar resembles a 1950s greaser as he reduces his drumsticks to sawdust while Heath Crawley holds it all in place on bass, dancing a jig around The Zoo stage.

The band has always had distaste for the formalities of an encore. Mackay tells the crowd, “Just pretend we left and came back on again,” finishing up with Social Currency and a lyric-less number announced in Italian by the band’s roadie. During their final number their energy escalates back up to the intensity present at the beginning of the set. If there’s a position available for the next great Aussie rock band, Children Collide appear more than happy to fill the void, and with a set like this, they’re tantalisingly close.