With a strong focus on the Australian music scene, Australian Guitar is a rich source of information on playing techniques, styles, the wide range of instruments available and all the technology that guitarists have to consider in the 21st Century.
MESA/BOOGIE UNVEILS ITS LIGHTEST, SMALLEST, CHEAPEST BASS AMP YET Mesa/Boogie has unveiled the Subway D-350, a compact but powerful unit that the Gibson-owned company says is the lightest, smallest and most affordable bass amp it’s ever produced. Given that the Subway D-350 weighs just over 1.3kg, and measures at just over 7cm high and under 23cm wide, we have no reason to quarrel with any of those claims, lofty as they seem. Small as it is though, the amp packs quite a punch, with 350 watts of Class D power. It’s built with a solid-state preamp coupled with a lightweight Class D power amp and switch-mode power supply. Mesa/Boogie also fit plenty of controls onto that tiny frame, gracing the Subway D-350 with a four-band (Bass, Low Mid, High Mid,…
ALEX MANHIRE HAILS FROM KAURNA/ADELAIDE, SA PLAYS IN THE BEAUTIFUL MONUMENT SOUNDS LIKE SYNTH-SOAKED MELODICORE LATEST DROP I’M THE REAPER (LP OUT NOW VIA GREYSCALE) What’s your current go-to guitar? My current go-to guitar is a Fender Jim Root signature Telecaster. I love that it’s a traditional Telecaster shape but has a modern twist with active humbuckers. I bought it second-hand, it was one of those Facebook group finds and it’s been a real workhorse for me. It’s super straightforward, and sounds great for the style that The Beautiful Monument play, so… Can’t go wrong! How did you initially fall in love with the instrument? The first reason I started playing guitar was because my friend had one when I was really young. He taught me ‘Smoke On The Water’…
WHERE JOHN CAIN ARENA NAARM/MELBOURNE, VICTORIA WHEN FRIDAY JUNE 10TH, 2022 REVIEW ELLIE ROBINSON PHOTOS MATIJA SMOJVER It felt weird to watch The Wombats play an indoor venue. Before tonight we’d never seen the British indie-rockers at their own show, but we’ve seen them countless times at festivals like Falls, Field Day, Groovin The Moo, Splendour In The Grass, Yours & Owls, Spilt Milk… Pretty much every one in the country, really. But there’s a reason why they’re so beloved in that unique festival atmosphere: their music is inescapably fun, their energy is infectiously affable, and their lowkey setup means the vibe steals the spotlight, not the spectacle. So ahead of their first, headliner-exclusive trip Down Under in three years – a lengthy gap when you consider that before then,…
WHERE THE FORUM NAARM/MELBOURNE, VICTORIA WHEN FRIDAY MAY 13TH, 2022 REVIEW ELLIE ROBINSON PHOTOS NICK MCKK Catching her breath after showing off her ravishing dance moves, Georgia Maq chuckled slyly, “I really like not playing the guitar.” Opening with a breathtaking yidaki performance from Dharug luminary Kiernan Ironfield, Camp Cope kicked off their hometown show at Melbourne’s Forum – a gig we’ve spent years eagerly awaiting, in a venue we’ve always wished the band would one day headline – with ‘Keep Growing’, one of the oldest songs in their catalogue and a bonafide staple of their setlists. It felt like a statement: bands usually hold off on their biggest hits ’til the end of the set, but when every song feels utterly enormous, why not start off on a banger?…
It was a weird time in the world, to say the very least, when Alexandra Lynn released her first album as Alex The Astronaut, The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing, in August 2020. We’ve since begun to regain some sense of normalcy – however fractured it may be – but Lynn’s personal journey over the past two years certainly wasn’t one she took down straight and/or clear paths. Her second album, How To Grow A Sunflower Underwater, commits to memory the route that she took, with all of its potholes and puddles intact. The record sounds nothing short of magical, with strings, horns, synths and sound effects flourishing widescreen soundscapes pillared by warming folk melodies and cool indierock beats. You’ll melt into its transcendental grasp before the lyrics start to make…
There are fans of Alexisonfire who are younger than the gap between their last two studio albums. The Canadian post-hardcore legends released their fourth full-length effort, Old Crows / Young Cardinals, in 2009, two years before they prematurely dropped off the face of the earth. They reunited in 2015, but at the time, were hesitant to say whether new music was on the cards. Standalone singles – ‘Familiar Drugs’ and ‘Complicit’ in 2019, and ‘Season Of The Flood’ in 2020 – sent fans into a frenzy thinking LP5 was finally inbound, but as frontman Dallas Green tells Australian Guitar, that was never the case. For all intents and purposes, Alexisonfire planned to release new music as it came to them, refusing to bind themselves to the pressures of a full…
