I saw Parades support Klaxons a few weeks ago and I loved their new sound so I bought their Album Foreign Tapes.
Like I said in my Klaxons review they remind me of a mix between The XX and Cloud Control but different in a really new and exciting way. They have a very dreamy sound and an interesting rock twist on folk music with amazing harmonies that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and say Hell Yeah!
The album features a plethora of talented ring-in friends, including the beautiful female vocals of Rebecca Shave on the majority of the album and Alyx Dennison on the fantastic track Loserspeak In New Tongue and I have a feeling Alyx was the female vocalist onstage with them the other night!
Other stand out tracks are Past Lives which has amazing drums that get me dancing every time, and Marigold which has a super catchy melody.
Folk-pop singer, song writer Jonathan Boulet is the bands drummer. But his talents don't end there as he's also the producer of the album and a musical force to be reckoned with.
I really enjoyed these guys live and the album is filled with great track after great track. There is some really stunning stuff coming out of Australia lately and I hope these guys get all they deserve. If you get the opportunity, I highly recommend you check them out.
It still shocks me every time I see the Klaxons, underage girls wearing high waisted SHORT shorts! What is it about the Klaxons that attract this sort of mini-ho-bag! I saw 2 inches of arse cheek hanging out of one little frumpy girls pants and I threw up in my mouth a little bit! Must be the fact that they usually hold All Ages gigs. With that old lady rant over I must now talk about HOW FREAKEN AMAZING THE ENTIRE NIGHT WAS!
The Klaxons were supported by Sydney Band Parades who interestingly have the talented Folk-Pop singer, song writer Jonathan Boulet as their drummer. They were just fantastic, big sound, haunting harmonies and the female vocals were beautiful. They're described as being an Art-Rock band which I think makes them sound a little wanky but these guys are anything but pretentious. They have a really interesting folk sound with an electro beat. If Cloud Control and The XX had a baby, that would be Parades. I enjoyed them so much, I invested $20 and bought their album from the merch stand between sets.
Then it was time for the Klaxons who opened with Flashover from their new album Surfing The Void. Thankfully they played loads off their first album such as Gravity's Rainbow, Golden Scans, Magick, and It's Not Over, but they also played heaps off their new album like Echoes, Surfing the Void, Venusia and my favourite off this great new album Twin Flames. Now, when first listening to the new album, which was released late last month, my initial thoughts were that it was a little disappointing, and that it sounds very similar to their first album Myths Of The Near Future. But after taking a few listens through I remembered that the first album is fantastic and actually, so is this new one!I love how raw and gritty they are, the vocals aren't perfect, the guitars are a little crazy and it sounds like real music, not over produced and polished and engineered to within an inch of its life! It is, what it is, and it's very sexy... as is James Righton on keyboard and vocals (3rd from the left below), unlike the rest of the band who are all quite unfortunate to look at!
They sounded perfect in every track and the time passed so quickly. Before I knew it they said a huge amount of thanks and were off, before coming back and playing an encore which included my favourite Klaxons track Atlantis to Interzone which had me up and dancing like every other person in the place. What can I say, Klaxons are one of my favourite bands.
I'm aware of trying not to gush too much in these blog posts, and keep them unbiased otherwise no one will want to read this thing if I just crap on about how amazing every band is in each and every post. But the thing is, I've told myself, I only want to talk about music I like. I'm not about to rant and slag off a band if they were no good or put out a horrid song on the radio, that would just be a waste of my time, so music that I don't like, doesn't end up on this space. And as for gig reviews, I'm paying for all these gigs myself so I generally only see bands I like, which of course means I'm going to love their live set, unless they do something appalling like turn up drunk, insult the audience and storm off cos they didn't get their backstage fruit platter, however if a band is crap live, I wont lie. The Klaxons weren't crap, they were fantastic, as were Parades.
I couldn't decide whether to attach an old track, Atlantis To Interzone, or a new track, Twin Flames, so I'm attaching both! Warning: Atlantis To Interzone is one of the worst clips I've ever seen. It's hilariously bad, they look like 16 year olds dancing around with flashy lights in their parents garage, but considering it was probably one of their first and LOW budget clips, I'm not surprised!
