Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 147 i Australian Guitar

LAMB OF GOD + BODY COUNT COLLAB ON THE WAY (MAYBE) Lamb Of God are currently working on new music, and are reportedly collaborating with Ice-T-fronted heavy metal outfit Body Count. In a new photo posted to the latter group’s Instagram page (see above), Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe can be seen with guitarists Ernie C and Juan Garcia. The post’s accompanying caption reads: “When your friend Randy Blythe invites you to do back up vocals on brand-new Lamb of God material… you show up and support.” It adds that the Virginia metallers’ new music is “slamming”. The nature of Lamb Of God’s new material is yet to be revealed, though they are reportedly working again with longtime producer Josh Wilbur, who has produced every Lamb Of God album…

PUP The Unraveling Of PUPTHEBAND LITTLE DIPPER / COOKING VINYL After three albums and an EP, fans know what to expect from the Canadian grit-pop overlords in PUP. We expect thick, crunchy riffs slathered in distortion, wailing with nigh-on punishing aplomb. We expect lyrics that make us want to laugh at first, then cry, then laugh again. Above all, we expect character – the tongue-in-cheek dorkiness of Stefan Babcock’s snarky quips, the loose and lively bite of Steve Sladkowski’s shredding, and the kind of steadfast, yet colourful rhythm section only bassist Nestor Chumak and drummer Zack Mykula could hold down. Like we said in our review of 2019’s Morbid Stuff (see: Australian Guitar #132), there’s only one band that sounds like PUP, and we like it when they sound like…

Though grandeur has always been a cornerstone of their sound, Gang Of Youths’ long-awaited third album, Angel In Realtime, takes the Sydney-native, London-based outfit to new heights of sonic opulence. It’s a conceptual epic, following frontman Dave Le’aupepe on a personal journey as learns about his estranged father’s heritage and background – much of which was kept was kept secret – in the wake of his death. As such, it far eschews the dancey indie-rock slant of the band’s first two records, and dives deep into the well of widescreen theatre-pop they’d only touched on scantly prior. Part of the musical shift comes down to a change in personnel: the band’s lead guitarist, Joji Malani, left the fold in 2019, leaving Jung Kim – who formerly held down the rhythm…

Over some 50 storied years of shredding, Mike Campbell has played on over 50 albums for over 30 artists – he’s jammed with everyone from Paula Abdul to Roy Orbison, and cut his teeth as an integral member of Stevie Nicks’ brass. The ‘80s saw him working closely with Bob Dylan (and he rejoined the fold for 2009’s Together Through Life), and in the latter half of the 2000s, he was Neil Diamond’s go-to guy. But if there’s one thing most people know Campbell for, it’s his longstanding role in The Heartbreakers, strumming side-by-side with Tom Petty from 1976 all the way up until Petty’s death in 2017. During the last decade or so of his Heartbreakers tenure, Campbell led a rock ’n’ rolling side-project called The Dirty Knobs. It…

Once upon a time, you bought an Epiphone guitar simply because you couldn’t afford a Gibson. That’s fact. As of 2022 however, a revamp of the Epiphone lineup means that these affordable heroes can no longer be dismissed as the poor cousins of “the real thing” and the Gibson vs Epiphone debate got a little more interesting. Vintage spec, pimped pickups and eyeball-seducing aesthetics mean that even the most modest budget can bag a guitar with serious tone, feel, and curb appeal. It’s all good news over at parent company Gibson USA too. After bouncing back following a period of uncertainty and poor management, the brand is putting out some of its best ever instruments. The message? No matter how much you have to splash out, there’s a Gibson or…

Us learner guitarists have never had it as good as we do now. There are enough video lessons on YouTube to last anyone for, well, probably forever. Reputable online guitar lessons sites are plentiful in number. There’s a whole world of tutorial content that you can access using just your smartphone. And, though learning guitar has been a little trickier lately for those who prefer their tuition face to face with a human, technology has been a saving grace, with video conferencing platforms helping keep students and teachers in touch. Now, as pandemic restrictions begin to ease in many territories, getting together with a guitar teacher is something you might once again consider. But will you be spending your cash with a ‘real’ tutor? Or is the convenience of virtual…

So, where do you stand on the age-old argument of running a multi-effects pedal vs. individual pedals? When you think about it, there’s basically two main categories of guitar effect. There’s effects that add gain to the signal. These generally increase the amplitude and in doing so add harmonic distortion. Enough gain, and the waveform will clip. If more clipping is desirable, diodes can be used to either ‘soft-clip’, or ‘hard-clip’ the waveform shape. This covers all boosts, drives, distortions and fuzzes. Then there’s effects that delay the signal in some way. Choruses and flangers delay a copy of the signal and manipulate it with an LFO, while delays and reverbs play it back. At the deep core of things, the same theory, maths and principles apply. We’ve glossed over…

FISHMAN TRIPLEPLAY FC-1 RRP: $499 • dynamicmusic.com.au Extend the capability of the award-winning TriplePlay wireless guitar controller and breathe new life into your MIDI gear with the new TriplePlay floor controller. With its built-in USB host, multi-function footswitches and MIDI I/O, you can connect sound modules and synths so you don’t have to bring your computer to the stage. Three footswitches let you step through TriplePlay patches and change presets on your MIDI devices. You also get access to TriplePlay’s built-in tuner, sustain/hold functionality, and route your guitar’s pickups through the integrated relay switcher for convenient mixing of guitar and MIDI sounds. FENDER PS-220E PARLOR RRP: $1,799 • fender.com The Paramount PS-220E combines state-of-the-art craftsmanship with vintage-inspired appointments, delivering the best of both worlds. Built with the choice of a…

Have you ever played that game where you build a shopping list of vintage synth classics? Scour the auction sites for the machines you couldn’t afford when you were a teenager, and you’ll likely find that it’s an even worse financial prospect now! All is not lost though, as we dive headlong into the realm of nostalgia, thanks to IK Multimedia. Syntronik 2 is a welcome update, building upon the reliable Mk 1 offering from IK. We’re reviewing the full suite, which is described as Syntronik 2 MAX. This offers a full-sized compendium of 33 software instruments, placed at the top of the package tree. If that feels a little overblown for your requirements, the regular-sized version offers 22 synth instruments, while the entry-level SE version includes 11 synth instruments.…

Pioneered by the late Jack Westheimer back in the heady days of the early 1960s, the Cort brand is familiar to many guitar players around the world. However, the scale of this Korean company’s operation may be less well understood. From its factories in Indonesia and China, Cort annually ships around a million guitars worldwide and almost a third of a million guitar amplifiers. Many of these are OEM products built for other well-known brands, although, for some time, Cort has produced instruments under its own name as well. There’s now a Cort all-valve amplifier to add to this manufacturing giant’s catalogue: the new Tube Craft CMV15, designed in collaboration with Korean boutique effects master Moollon. The Tube Craft CMV15 is a handsome-looking compact 1×12 combo, echoing the ‘less is…

Solid state amps tend to fall into two categories: your meat-and-potatoes “clean and dirty with reverb” bundles and “everything but the kitchen sink” ones with amp and effects modelling. I have no problem using either type as of late because, frankly, solid state amplification has come a long way from some of the sterile- and anaemic-sounding tubeless amps of yore. Case in point: Electro-Harmonix’s brand-new Dirt Road Special isn’t an exact reissue of the late- ‘70s “Mike Matthews Dirt Road Special” – a rare 25-watt solid state combo with Electro-Harmonix’s Small Stone phaser circuit built in – but rather, a capable 1×12 combo that builds upon the original’s design by bumping the power up to 40 watts and replacing the phaser with four built-in reverbs pulled from EHX’s Holy Grail…

CHRISTOS ATHANASIAS HAILS FROM MELBOURNE, VIC PLAYS IN DEVIL ELECTRIC AND THE UGLY KINGS SOUNDS LIKE FACE-PUNCHING ROCK ‘N’ ROLL LATEST DROP GODLESS (devil electric lp out now independently) What’s your current go-to guitar? When it comes to Devil Electric live, I’ve been using the most excellent Guild Polara S-100. It plays brilliantly from the get-go and sounds unreal; it has excellent tone response and sounds fat and tight, especially when I’m playing heavy, chugging riffs. When it comes to The Ugly Kings, I’ve been religiously using a sunburst Hagstrom Viking Deluxe. This has been customised with gold hardware, TV Jones pickups and an original Bigsby. This was literally the first project where I created something unique, using what the makers intended but adding a Christos flavour. It’s a super…

WHERE KRYAL CASTLE BALLARAT, VICTORIA WHEN THURSDAY DECEMBER 30TH AND FRIDAY 31ST, 2021 It was hard not to feel excited as Kryal Castle came into view, with authentically styled red and blue banners hanging from its dual turrets. This festival has the best metal and hardcore bands Australia has to offer, and it’s being held inside a full-size replica of a medieval castle in the middle of country Victoria. A castle. This author cannot stress enough how metal it is to walk across a drawbridge to enter a festival – even if the moat was an off-putting, murky green (and probably contained at least 400 unique varieties of bacteria). With the mercury high and the mood even higher, both Windwaker and The Beautiful Monument were able to hype up those…

Cutting her teeth as a busker playing heartrending emo slow-burners on a weathered acoustic guitar, it was magical to see Georgia Maq blossom into the headstrong bandleader she was destined to become with Camp Cope. Their self-titled debut was a solid introduction, beefing up Maq’s lowkey crooners with bold, scene-stealing basslines (courtesy of Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich) and punchy drums (via Sarah ‘Thomo’ Thompson). Its follow-up, 2018’s How To Socialise And Make Friends, galvanised the group as a force to be reckoned with, melding their venomous riot grrrl ethos with searing indie-rock motifs. Though the band have kept quiet over the last four years, their artistry’s only continued to grow. Hellmrich launched her own project, Kelso, exploring a different corner of the indie bubble with her 2019 EP Always A Godmother, Never…

For the first time in over two years, fans along the Australian east coast will chance to watch Pond, live in the flesh, this April. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has kept the WA psych-rockers bound to local stages (where they’ve played almost a dozen shows) since the plague broke out, but now they’re primed to tear shit up in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne over three wild nights in April. It’s there we’ll see Pond debut a stack from their ninth studio album, bluntly titled 9. The release – which spans a tight nine tracks, because of course it does – saw the quintet return to their roots, jamming freely and emphasising fun over being fastidious. Shortly after the tour wraps up, they’ll release a deluxe edition of the record with…

Throughout history, there have been oodles of bands plagued by shit luck – and as far as Australia’s ever-burgeoning heavy music scene is concerned, Ocean Grove might very well just take out the top prize. They’ve navigated controversy, a revolving door of personnel, and all manner of behind-the-scenes clusterf***ery – to say the least, their tell-all book will be one hell of a read – but perhaps their most punishing blow was doled in the lead-up to their second album, Flip Phone Fantasy. It was just two days before its March 13th, 2020 release that the WHO declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, effectively axing the group’s plans – ambitious ones at that – to make their assault on the international stage. But never the ones to let a…

The first urgent stirrings of alternative rock aren’t hard to find. Just look for the loudest, noisiest or most iconoclastic bands making a scene in the underground of rock and roll’s early years. Long before the term “alternative rock” came into popular use, there existed a strain of guitar groups united in their disregard for convention and commercial acceptance. The earliest prototypes can be found in 1960s garage rock acts like The Seeds and The Standells, whose use of feedback, distortion and inexpert playing laid the groundwork for rock’s anti-conventional future genres. A few, like The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, took the music to experimental extremes on albums that remain touchstones for guitarists who have followed. By the late 1970s, New York City’s art rock scene brought us Television,…

Guitarists coped with the enforced isolation of the pandemic in different ways. Some finessed their technique, others checked off songs on their must-learn list. For me, productivity was my distraction: I was playing electric guitar, always plugged in, always writing, always recording. In my mind, it wouldn’t feel like a waste of a year if I had something to show for it. The downside to this musical hot streak was a complete disconnect from the simple joy of actually playing. My Cort acoustic gathered dust on its stand in the corner of the living room, while my electrics got an eternal workout. Playing live shows with function bands had previously been my impetus for learning new material – without that catalyst, I was lost in an eternal loop of capturing…

WALRUS AUDIO ERAS FIVE-STATE DISTORTION AND IRON HORSE LM308 DISTORTION Walrus Audio’s two new distortion pedals provide varying flavours of the effect via clipping from silicon diodes, LEDs or both together. However, each takes a different route to dialing it in. The Eras Five-State Distortion has five hard-clipping options, gain and volume knobs, and very effective tone controls – the treble knob is especially adept at dialling in cutting presence. There’s a great variety of dirt on offer, from crunchy drive to high-gain metal tones, and all the clipping modes have something different to offer. The main delineation is between the three Tight modes and the two Rhythm modes, where the scooped mids offer a notably different sonic landscape to the Tight modes’ slight mid cut. The cherry on the…

There are many elements that come together in a great contemporary mix, and space is without doubt one of the most important. But what do we mean by ‘space’? In the simplest terms, it’s clearance between musical parts in terms of frequency ranges and dynamics, as established using EQ, panning, sidechain compression and other basic production processes. Without sufficient clearance and space, kick drums and basses can all too easily collide, to the detriment of the low end; vocals and synths end up fighting for dominance; and the mix in general becomes flabby, unfocused and messy. With this collection of tips, we’ll give you nine proven starting points on which to base your mix-thinning workflow. 1. DON’T GO TOO LOW Are you a skilled piano player? Good – keep practising!…

The online launch of the EVH 5150 Iconic was, to put it nicely, mixed. When the promotional vid announcing the product went online in mid-December ’21, many shredders in the comment section were left agog. Was this amateurish tone, managing to be muddy and fizzy at the same time, really coming from a head emblazoned with the names of both the iconic Peavey amp and one of the great all-time virtuosos? They say that any publicity is good publicity, right? And in any case, the fear has since subsided, as cooler heads and happy customers have begun to pitch in their two cents in the months following. Chalk it up to a regrettably bad sound mix on the video, the internet’s need for clickbait, and the inexplicable tendency of online…

ALDOUS HARDING Warm Chris 4AD / REMOTE CONTROL Landing as Aldous Harding’s fourth album, Warm Chris contains delicate piano ballads, acoustic-based blues that chase dreams of having an office in the country (‘Tick Tock’), forays into pop and indie-rock, and an unexpected collaboration with Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. While much of Warm Chris is undeniably lovely, it’s often in one ear and out the other. Meanwhile, the moments of failed experimentalism – see the childlike screeching on ‘Leathery Whip’, and overly pitched-up singing on the otherwise catchy ‘Lawn’ – bring down the listening experience. There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, of course – it just doesn’t work too well in this instance. BUGS Cooties COMMUNITY MUSIC Bugs’ jangly brand of happy emo, drawing on early 2000s pop-punk with an…

Debut albums can be a terrifying beast to tackle – after all, you only get one chance to make your first full-length record. As such, some bands spend years – decades, even – going out of their way to make the strongest records possible crafting opulent, conceptual epics primed to make musical history. Some bands stick to the bare necessities, focusing on a smaller list of ideas to ensure each one is executed as sharply as possible. And some bands know right off the bat that they’ll be late bloomers, so their debut albums are little more than glorified demos – they’ll save the real good shit when they’ve got an audience lined up. Bakers Eddy are none of those bands. They’re a bit paradoxical in their process – they’re…

The world has changed a lot since 2002, to say the very least. Up until that December, Midnight Oil had thrived as Australia’s premiere protest band, cranking out a lengthy string of rock hits as poignant politically as they were musically. And though its members stayed active in the social justice movements of the 21st century – frontman Peter Garrett even going so far as to become a minister – the band itself called it quits after their 11th album, 2002’s Capricornia. Now – amid a global pandemic, a myriad of disasters incited by climate change, the mainstream rise of far-right malice and World War III on the cusp of eruption – the Oils have returned to soundtrack the revolution of the 2020s. As longstanding axeman Jim Moginie tells Australian…

Fame struck Budjerah like a truck: the Coodjinburra songster dropped his eponymous debut EP last March, and by the year’s end had become a national sensation with truckloads of records sold, opening spots on tours with acts like Thelma Plum, The Avalanches and Lime Cordiale, a god-tier collab with EDM megastars Pnau, and wins at both the ARIAs (Breakthrough Artist) and National Indigenous Music Awards (New Artist Of The Year). But despite his sudden thrusting into the mainstream, Budjerah has remained resoundingly humble. When he jumps on a Zoom call with Australian Guitar, the 19-year-old is brushing off crumbs from a sausage roll he snagged from his favourite local bakery. He still lives in the coastal NSW town of Fingal Head, with strong ties to his community in the Bundjalung…

It’s safe to say by now that if you’re a fan of Short Stack, you’ve probably developed some trust issues. They announced their third album, Art Vandelay, in October of 2011 – only to scrap it and break up some five months later. The record was then shadow-dropped by their old label in 2013, leading fans to believe a reunion was imminent... But alas, that turned out to be a false alarm. They did eventually return the next year, though, making huge news of a comeback tour and album – even going so far as to call it Homecoming – in 2015. But after a sole national tour in support of that record, the band slipped right back into the shadows. Like clockwork, Short Stack have reemerged for a third…

FRETTING AND PICKING ACCURACY THE CORE OF ANY TECHNIQUE WORKOUT IS MAKING YOUR FINGERS MOVE MORE EFFICIENTLY. OUR EXERCISES WILL HELP. When most people think of a guitar workout, they inevitably think of ‘getting faster’, but this can be a fool’s errand. Winding up the speed on your metronome might not do you any good in the long run if you aren’t playing accurately – you’ll just end up playing sloppily quickly. It’s important to keep in mind that speed is a byproduct of accuracy. These exercises will improve your dexterity and accuracy, which will in turn allow you to play faster. Work through the examples slowly and only increase the speed when you can play an exercise ten times without error. LEGATO WORKOUT A fret-hand technique, legato refers to…

It’s become a cliché that guitarists don’t ‘do’ progress. Certainly, there’s no denying that battered Tweed amps and old Les Pauls are magical things – and there’s a reason they’re still benchmarks for a certain kind of tone and a certain kind of player. But, as we emerge slowly from the pandemic, there are signs that a genuine renaissance in guitar design is happening – and that it’s being driven by player demand. The pandemic has played a role in that. Prior to the world locking down for a year, webcasting and using social media as the main outlet for your music was just a rising trend. Now it feels central. Other norms are crumbling, too. It used to be that only flawlessly black ebony passed muster on a fingerboard,…

Jack Endino’s name has been on a lot of records, but it remains one of the downsides of being an in-demand producer and mixing engineer that oftentimes your name becomes associated with other people’s music. That’s not always a bad thing. As Endino joins us from his home in Seattle, the one-time “engine room of the Battleship Grunge” testifies that getting the early works of Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Nirvana on record can be good for your career. “I tell people who are getting into the recording world, like, ‘Your mileage may vary; your first clients when you are learning how to record might not be Soundgarden and Nirvana!’” he says. “I was in the right place at the right time, and grunge is the gift that keeps on giving in…

Markbass seem to have a gift: think of any combination of amp features that can’t be done, and they’ll figure out a way of doing it. It’s not like we need another compact bass combo (they always sound box-y and tonally confined, anyway), but this Mini is too interesting to ignore. It’s small (just 18 inches tall), light (18 kilograms), and features a full tone set and then some. Indeed, the tonal range of these controls is quite astounding and, yet, it’s easy to dial in a great sound. The Mini CMD 151P, like all the Markbass gear, has a pretty serious appearance, but with just a hint of frivolity on the control panel with a touch of yellow. And then there’s that big yellow cone looking at you. That’s…

Orange has been turning out consistently great-sounding and innovative products for over 50 years, with a history that goes back to the early days of British blues and rock. Back then, the emphasis was on big, heavy 100-watt heads and 4×12 cabinets. Today, things have changed and many guitarists choose pedals to shape their sound, using amplification purely for making things louder. Consequently, self-contained preamps are increasingly popular and Orange has just released the new Guitar Butler, following on from its popular Bass Butler preamp introduced a couple of years ago. The Guitar Butler is a full Orange front-end, squeezed into a compact, pedalboard-friendly enclosure and built to Orange’s typically high standards. Inside the alloy box the electronics are all held on one large circuit board, excluding switches and sockets,…