Last month, Melbourne’s elite vintage rock act, Devil Electric came roaring back with Tahlia, the first single from their upcoming third studio album of the same name. It was their first music in half a decade and what a triumphant return it was.
With the impending release of Tahlia the album, dropping like a ten tonne heavy thing on Friday, March 27, the band have released their next slab of epic doom via the monstrous, This Hereafter.
A 9-minute riff-heavy marathon of tension and release through epic highs and crushing lows. This Hereafter, feels like pushing a boulder through desert sands before finally reaching an oasis. Lyrically the most vulnerable moment on the record, the raw emotion is unmistakable, with Pierina’s voice audibly breaking in the closing lines, leaving the listener with a fragile but undeniable glimmer of hope.
It’s a showcase of the bands immersive songwriting and is a pivotal moment over all within the album itself.
********************* DEVIL ELECTRIC RETURN WITH TAHLIA:
A HEAVY RECKONING FIVE YEARS IN THE MAKING
After five years, Devil Electric roar back with Tahlia, their third studio album and most emotionally charged release to date.
At its core, Tahlia is an album about fracture and survival, pain, frustration, and relationships breaking under pressure. Uncannily, its themes mirror the years that followed its recording, which only strengthen the emotive undertones of Tahlia. Delivered through soaring vocals, unforgettable hooks, and searing riffs.
The journey begins with the title track and first single, “Tahlia” a riff-driven return to the band’s classic sound. It charts a visceral descent from rock bottom to redemption. A tango between vintage doom metal and modern heavy rock. Tahlia is a homage to the Latin phrase “that which nourishes me, destroys me” told through a blend of energetic verses, chanting choruses, and moody riffs. All designed to leave the listener in an enigmatic state of mind.From there the band changes pace with “Jill and jack shit,” a swaggering, attitude-laden track that is cut full of spitting vocals and sharp edges, proudly tipping its hat to the grit and character of the band’s hometown, Melbourne.
“Weirdos” pushes the pace further, embracing a punchy, contemporary hard rock energy before diving into more experimental territory with “When We Talk About Nothing.” Inspired by Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, the track strips things back and drags the listener into a heavier, more peeled back space that sets up the epic and hard-hitting “Acid Bath”.
“Acid Bath,” is an instrumental collaboration featuring Lex Waterreus of Seedy Jezus. A slow-burn descent into hazy unease, the track builds an immense wall of sound. The souring guitar solo and unhinged vocal loops by Lex will ensure this song is played on repeat, as it will tickle heavy rock, psychedelic and doom fans alike.
All paths lead to “This Hereafter,” the album’s final track; the longest and most epic doom offering by Devil Electric. Clocking in at nine minutes, it is a marathon of tension and release through epic highs and crushing lows that feel like pushing a boulder through desert sands before finally reaching an oasis. Lyrically the most vulnerable moment on the record, the raw emotion is unmistakable, with Pierina’s voice audibly breaking in the closing lines, leaving the listener with a fragile but undeniable glimmer of hope.
Balancing heavy rock and doom with a contemporary edge, Tahlia is an album that demands to be felt start to finish. Soaring, immersive, and deeply personal, it marks a powerful chapter for Devil Electric and one well worth the wait.
Devil Electric are for fans Of:
Black Sabbath, Graveyard, Kadavar, The Dead Weather, Blues Pills, The Well, Electric Citizen…
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Swedish melodic hard rock powerhouses H.E.A.T are set to make their long-awaited return to Australian stages in a few weeks time, bringing their electrifying live show back down under for their first headline tour since 2022.
Following their scene-stealing performances at 2024’s Glam Fest in Melbourne and Sydney, the band will hit the east coast armed with their acclaimed new album, 2025’s “Welcome To The Future” and nearly two decades of melodic hard rock anthems that have established them as one of Europe’s premier rock exports.
‘Welcome to the Future’ is a dynamic, melodic, and powerfully anthemic ride – one that Powerplay Magazine hails as: “(…) not only their best album to date but one to raise the bar for their peers. This album will certainly be recognised as an AOR classic and a contender for album of the year.”
H.E.A.T’s live performances have earned rave reviews from critics and fans alike. “Good luck to any band that would ever have to play after H.E.A.T, because this is how it’s done,” declared
May The Rock Be With You, while Metal Roos praised the band’s show as “a visual spectacular.” The Rockpit noted simply: “For an hour I was captivated.”
Known for their explosive energy, arena-sized anthems, massive riffs, soaring vocals and impeccable harmonies, H.E.A.T delivers an unforgettable concert experience that combines raw power with polished musicianship and undeniable swagger.
H.E.A.T are Kenny Leckremo (Vocals), Dave Dalone (Guitars), Jimmy Jay (Bass), Jona Tee (Keyboards) and Don Crash (Drums) – a formidable lineup that brings relentless energy and precision to every performance.
If you have seen H.E.A.T live, then you know what to expect. If you have missed their last two visits to our shores, do not make the same mistake again. You simply must experience this band live. You will be hard pressed to experience a better band live.
Secure your tickets and witness one of hard rock’s most compelling live acts.
Decay finds Geneva-based band Tract blending shoegaze and post-rock textures with subtle North African rhythmic influences, resulting in a sound that feels both familiar and refreshingly distinct. Layers of hazy, reverb-drenched guitars drift over hypnotic, organic grooves, creating a slow-burning atmosphere that gradually pulls the listener in. Tract focus on mood and progression, allowing the track to evolve naturally rather than relying on sharp shifts. There’s a quiet tension throughout, reflecting the song’s theme of time and its unpredictable nature.
Decay stands out for its fusion of styles and immersive, meditative flow.
When the Reels Burn Out sees Yellow House crafting a lush, cinematic indie piece that feels both expansive and deeply personal. Built around warm organ tones, jangling guitars, and a steady groove, the track moves between grounded intimacy and a sense of widescreen, almost cosmic longing. Yellow House leans into atmosphere, letting textures and subtle details shape the emotional narrative of distance, fate, and connection. There’s a dreamy, impressionistic quality throughout, where sound and feeling blur together. When the Reels Burn Out stands out for its immersive mood and gentle sense of emotional pull.
After triumphantly casting off the shackles of claustrophobic dissonance on 2020’s lauded Stare Into Death and Be Still, New Zealand unorthodox death metal legends ULCERATE up the ante even further with mind-bending 7th album Cutting the Throat of God. An acknowledgement that the band’s most powerful and affecting material leans to the melodic side, this […]
Indie rock titans and eight-time GRAMMY nominees Death Cab for Cutie – Benjamin Gibbard, Nicholas Harmer, Jason McGerr, Dave Depper and Zac Rae – announce their 11th studio album. I Built You A Tower, will be released on June 5th via ANTI- Records. The move marks the band’s return to their independent roots after 20 years on Atlantic Records. Produced and engineered by John Congleton and assembled from a mere three weeks of sessions, I Built You A Tower was recorded at Animal Rites in Los Angeles, as well as the band members’ homes in Seattle, Bellingham, Los Angeles and Portland.
Alongside today’s album announcement, Death Cab for Cutie share the album’s propulsive first single, “Riptides.” Speaking on the single Gibbard says, “Riptides is about the challenge of dealing with personal struggles as the world around us experiences tragedy and loss on an unfathomable scale. And how when these two elements intertwine themselves in our psyches, it feels utterly paralyzing.”
Listen to the song and watch its Jason Lester-directed video below
In recent years, Death Cab celebrated several historic milestones, including massive sold-out tours celebrating the 20th anniversaries of seminal releases Transatlanticism and Plans. Those tours were pivotal to the creation of I Built You A Tower, as behind the scenes, Gibbard weathered the greatest pressure of his professional life — fronting both Death Cab and the Postal Service on arena stages for hours a night — while struggling with the collapse of his personal life in the background. The strain felt too much for one person to bear, and the “tower” originated as a way to protect himself. “There’s this need to find a place in ourselves to put loss and grief,” he explains. “A place that can hold it so we can move on with our lives. But there are these moments where the trauma breaks out of that shell we created for it.”
I Built You A Tower is an album of reconciling with past selves in order to locate a new future. “The anniversary tours exorcised any nostalgia in our systems,” Depper observes. “We felt part of this powerful force greater than all of us and went into the studio with a sense of, how can we capture that feeling and put it into something new?” Harmer continues, “The whole experience of this record got us back to the earliest versions of this band: If the musicians in the room like what we’re working on, that’s enough. We reconnected with the confidence that comes with that.” As such, this is not the dreaded “return to form” narrative, but a reclamation of a core ethos that has run through Death Cab’s 30-year history.
The band recently announced a North American summer tour, which is on sale now. Today the band also announces an autumn UK/EU tour, with tickets going on sale this Friday at 10 am locally. These performances come on the heels of a historic, sold-out global tour in marking the 20th anniversary of Transatlanticism plus their universally acclaimed 10th studio effort, 2022’s Asphalt Meadows. Sign up for early access to tickets at deathcabforcutie.com
Tour dates:
May 29 – Denver, CO – Outside Days
July 10 – Minneapolis, MN – Armory *
July 11 – Milwaukee, WI – Miller High Life Theatre *
July 12 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park *
July 14 – Cincinnati, OH – MegaCorp Pavilion *
July 15 – Cleveland, OH – Jacobs Pavilion *
July 17 – Philadelphia, PA – Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts ^
July 18 – Canandaigua, NY – CMAC ^
July 19 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre ^
July 21 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion ^
July 22 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek ^
July 24 – St. Louis, MO – Stifel Theatre #
July 25 – Bentonville, AR – The Momentary #
July 26 – Council Bluffs, IA – Harrah’s Stir Cove #
July 28 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater #
July 29 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater #
July 31 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre #
August 2 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre #
August 3 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre #
August 4 – San Diego, CA – Gallagher Square at Petco Park #
August 6 – Las Vegas, NV – The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas &
August 7 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre &
August 9 – San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands
September 16 – Dublin, Ireland – 3Olympia Theatre September 19 – Manchester, UK – O2 Victoria Warehouse
September 20 – Edinburgh, UK – Corn Exchange
September 21 – Gateshead, UK – The Glasshouse
September 23 – Bristol, UK – The Prospect Building
September 25 – London, UK – Troxy
September 29 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg
September 30 – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal
October 1 – Berlin, Germany – Columbiahalle
October 3 – Paris, France – Elysée Montmartre
*with Jay Som
^with Japanese Breakfast
#with Nation of Language
&with Lala Lala
Tracklisting
1. Full of Stars
2. Punching The Flowers
3. Pep Talk
4. I Built You A Tower (a)
5. Envy The Birds
6. Stone Over Water
7. How Heavenly a State
8. Trap Door
9. Riptides
10. The Flavor of Metal
11. I Built You A Tower (b)
More on Death Cab for Cutie and I Built You A Tower:
You could easily mistake it for romantic tribute. I Built You A Tower, the phrase that gives Death Cab for Cutie’s 11th album its title, sounds like a paean or plea to a former love. An obelisk and work of art, a testament to what you had with one another. Something so great surely it could never collapse. But for Ben Gibbard it was quite different, a sturdy tomb of stone in which he could — temporarily and in vain — hide the past away just so he could push through when grief threatened to consume him.
I Built You A Tower is an album of reconciling with past selves in order to locate a new future. This was true for Death Cab for Cutie as much as it was for Gibbard himself. After 20-odd years in the major label system, the band returned to their indie roots and signed with ANTI- Records. The move coincided with Death Cab embarking on a writing and recording process more akin to their initial run of albums in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, filtered through lessons learned through the textural experimentation of their ‘10s records and a decade-plus with their current quintet lineup: Gibbard, bassist Nick Harmer, drummer Jason McGerr and multi-instrumentalists Dave Depper and Zac Rae.
Before all that, Death Cab for Cutie first revisited the past. The 2023-2025 tours celebrating the 20th anniversaries of seminal releases Transatlanticism and Plans were pivotal to the creation of I Built You A Tower. Spending so much time in the world of beloved old releases reminded the quintet the connection they could achieve with fans and each other through more stripped-down songs relative to the layered, maximalist work they had favoured in recent years. Soon after wrapping the Plans shows, the band gathered in the studio once more with producer John Congleton, harnessing the post-tour energy to record a raw, vulnerable new set of songs from Gibbard with the urgency they demanded.
After 2018’s Thank You for Today found the quintet figuring out how to record together and 2022’s Asphalt Meadows’ pandemic gestation necessitated a remote “chain letter” writing process, I Built You A Tower provided an opportunity to represent the interplay that had developed since Depper and Rae first joined as auxiliary touring members in support of 2015’s Kintsugi.
Trusting Congleton after their collaboration on Asphalt Meadows, Death Cab let him lead them into a more pared-down, immediate aesthetic — songs sometimes caustic (Harmer and Depper’s angsty co-write “How Heavenly a State”) and sometimes wistfully twilit (“I Built You A Tower (a)”) always delivered with the lean muscle of the five men in the room with minimal ornamentation. The album came together in a mere three weeks and change, the fastest since The Photo Album. “We weren’t afraid of a deeply human sound, some messiness,” Gibbard asserts. “This isn’t an airbrushed photograph. This is what we look like, this is what we sound like.”
For Gibbard, keeping these songs visceral and undistilled served other purposes, echoing the personal turmoil they depicted and the malleability I Built You A Tower took on over time. During those anniversary tours, Gibbard weathered the greatest pressure of his professional life while struggling with the collapse of his marriage in the background. Though heartbreak remains eternally fertile ground for songwriters, Gibbard was seeking something else when the songs poured out amidst the anniversary tours. I Built You A Tower is not a divorce record, but rather a record about the aftermath — running from or sidelining grief, coming to terms with the emotional debt that accrues, one man’s at-times harrowing reckoning with himself and the past lives left in his wake. There is no score-settling, no bitterness. At least, none aimed at another person. Across the album, you hear Gibbard build a tower while he dismantles himself.
There is a specific arc across the project, from the bad thoughts creeping up in “Pep Talk,” to Gibbard explicitly confessing “I’m trying to hold it together” in “Stone Over Water,” until the propulsive “Riptides” exposes a desperate admission it’s not working. I Built You A Tower captures coping mechanisms failing at every turn, yet nevertheless arrives at a decision to carry on. By the end, the shape of the tower changes.
I Built You A Tower is the sound of loss, compartmentalisation and then grief bursting out from the seams. But it’s also the sound of the growth that comes after falling apart, of acknowledging pain without letting it destroy you. “I see the tower existing on your emotional horizon,” Gibbard concludes. “You don’t always have to look at what’s inside it, but it’s a reminder that it happened. You know it’s there. You have to face it.”
What remains black for Gaerea are the black outfits and masks. These are also the distinctive features of a band that has evolved musically over time. The Porto-based band started ten years ago and released their debut album, “Unsettling Whispers,” in 2018. This year, the band celebrates their tenth anniversary with an album called “Loss,”… Continue Reading →
Lie Down with the Dead balances introspective themes with an unexpectedly upbeat indie electronic pop-rock sound. some Human pairs energetic rhythms and bright textures with lyrics that explore withdrawal, reflection, and the need to reset. That contrast works in the track’s favor, turning a heavy emotional concept into something quietly empowering rather than defeatist. The production keeps things moving, while the vocals carry a sense of vulnerability beneath the surface. Lie Down with the Dead stands out for reframing stillness not as surrender, but as a necessary step toward rebuilding.
The Destination blends neo-soul textures with conscious hip-hop in a way that feels both grounded and introspective. Kiyan Foroughi lays down a smooth, atmospheric backdrop, allowing Substantial to deliver thoughtful, reflective verses with clarity and purpose, while Rachelle Ruby adds a soulful touch that softens and elevates the track’s emotional core. There’s a calm, meditative flow throughout, echoing themes of inner growth and self-realization. Rather than chasing intensity, The Destination leans into depth and meaning, offering a refined, jazz-tinged hip-hop piece that resonates long after it ends.
Rock legends The Angels are hitting the road in June to mark the 50th anniversary of their debut track, Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, a song that is an indelible part of the Australian culture. Kicking off in Queensland, dates have been booked for capital cities and key regional centres across New […]
After triumphantly casting off the shackles of claustrophobic dissonance on 2020’s lauded Stare Into Death and Be Still, New Zealand unorthodox death metal legends ULCERATE up the ante even further with mind-bending 7th album Cutting the Throat of God. An acknowledgement that the band’s most powerful and affecting material leans to the melodic side, this […]
