Currently back home on Australian soil, DZ Deathrays are playing a string of very intimate (but no doubt sweaty) club shows at Rocket Bar in Adelaide and Ding Dong Lounge in Melbourne, as well as a little support slot with The Bronx on their upcoming tour and DJ sets nationally at the Groovin The Moo festival, before the duo head back to the UK in May for a whole lot more touring.
With all that international and national touring under their belt we thought the DZ boys would have found some awesome new bands along the way, so we asked if they would be keen to program one of our mixtapes and they said yes! So wrap your ears around the international and Aussie tracks they’re diggin’.
Baby Godzilla – A Good Idea Realised
“This is a new tune from our friends from Nottingham in the UK. We first met these guys when we were doing our first headline tour in the UK in 2011. They pretty much blew our minds with how much energy they had. From the get go they were on the floor in the crowd, their guitars continuously flailing and failing and being taped back together as the show went on. They are about to go on tour with Enter Shikari in the UK which is pretty epic.”
California X – Curse of the Nightmare
“I found California X randomly one night when i was trawling the internet for new music. The whole album is awesome but I love this song especially… Just those palm mutes through all the verses take me right back to when I first got in to rock music. It’s nice to see that sound coming back from time to time. It’s scuzzy but has a great hook underneath it all.”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – So Good At Being In Trouble
“Most people have probably already heard this track but I thought I would chuck it in because it’s the song that stuck with me on the first couple of listens to their new record. We have always been massive fans of The Mint Chicks and since being able to support UMO in Australia a while back; it’s cool to always bump into these guys in different places around the world. This track has a great vibe and the way the drums are simplified to that one loop the whole way through really works.”
Big Scary – Luck Now
“This is the new one from these guys, and like the UMO track, its drum loop really works well to bring you in to the song and get the groove right. I like how everything else changes around the drum pattern and thats what keeps it interesting. Always been fans of Big Scary, bit of a 2 piece crush!”
PVT – Evolution
“Richard from PVT produced our record around the same time he was recording the new PVT album. I was really interested to hear what they had done this time after talking to him about it in the studio. I guess they have always been known for electronic experimentation but I feel like in this record they have found the best parts of that experimentation and wrapped it around what are essentially pop songs. This song to me was the first to jump off the record and it feels like a song that could have been released in the late 70s, 80s, 90s, or now. Also, the way the chorus drops in to this cruisey one word repetition appeals to me, not every chorus needs to go big sometimes its nice to hold things back.”
Palms – LOVE
“Palms are fucking awesome. In the world of Australian pop garage bands these guys rule pretty hard and don’t hold back on the hooks. This new song is a sweet reminder that sometimes the more pop hooks you can cram into 3 minutes, the better it is going to be when you are playing to a crowd of sway/dancing drunk people at 1am.”
Wounds – Dead Dead Fucking Dead
“Something a bit heavier now. Wounds are an Irish band we met last year. Really great guys and their new album has been getting some good attention over in the north. This track off their album is pretty killer. It’s got this nice little stomping punk attitude with the chanting gang vocal chorus. It’s like they went part 2 on Turbonegro’s ‘All My Friends Are Dead’, and did a decent job at it.”
The Bronx – Torches
“We are about to go on tour with The Bronx, they are one of our favourite bands and still a massive influence for DZ. I was really impressed with the new album, seems like they made a slight shift in direction but it was the right way to go. Not completely leaving the thrash punk rock of the first album but letting it now exist as its own moment in their career that they can come back to whenever and it will feel as new and fresh as the first time we ever heard Matt scream in Heart Attack American. This song though, shows that shift in direction and I think it has a quality to it that is going to shine live after listening to it on record. It’s a bit of an anthem!”
