After a three-year absence from Australian shores, Cloud Control have slowly been making their way back around the country, most notably supporting Weezer and playing Splendour In The Grass.
Now touring their sophomore album Dream Cave, the Blue Mountains band have developed enormously during their time abroad.
Support act Palms gave a manic performance. Frontman Al Grigg, his mop of curls hidden under a baseball cap, introduced each new song with cheeky energy.
‘Love’ emphasised the loud tenacity of the young musicians, Grigg dragging the vocal smoothness of its verses across gravel for the frenzied chorus.
Each new track held something new for the show, with harsh garage sounds melting into suave indie-rock.
The echoing depth of ‘Scream Rave’ provided an appropriately cavernous introduction to Cloud Control. The synth-drenched track was met with screams of excitement, its sonic reverberations layered in grandiose space.
As an album, Dream Cave shows the band to have matured and grown in confidence, washing percussion over strings and vocals, and building stormy melodies from the moody lyrics.
With a much heavier feel than the preceding Bliss Release, the new album pulses with momentum in a live setting.
Highlights ‘Dojo Rising’ and ‘Promises’ each communicated this change in a massive way – with gritty guitar solos and the silken vocals of Heidi Lenffer swooning underneath Alister Wright’s bold melancholy.
Drunk on Cloud Control’s blissed out vibes and clearly mesmerised by the rainbow-silhouetted band, the crowd moved in time with the shifting rhythms and drawling psychedelia of the set.
Wright drove home the persistent choral lines of his new songs with bright steadiness, reminding everyone of the anthemic nature of the first album.
The cyclical lyrics, which repeat over and over again throughout each upbeat tune, could easily fall into the trap of becoming tedious. However, Cloud Control’s layered instrumental moments broke through the hazy atmosphere to create a texture of crazed unpredictability – the exact opposite of boring.
Alternating between old and new, Cloud Control strummed into the earthen bliss of ‘Meditation Song #2 (Why Oh Why)’, ‘Ghost Story’ and ‘There’s Nothing in the Water We Can’t Fight’. With each song awash with warm delight and euphoric harmonies, the band took the audience happily back to 2010.
‘Gold Canary’ wasn’t forgotten from the set list. As dizzying lights rotated in splashes, the familiar opening chant began and immediately found its way through the crowd.
With his hypnotic understanding of performance dynamics, Wright cradled the audience’s attentions with an understated ease throughout the main set-closing number.
Deliberately reminiscent of Roy Orbison, ‘Dream Cave’ began the encore and evoked the classic ‘60s balladeer’s dark croon.
Ending with 2008’s ‘Buffalo Country’ from their self-titled EP, Cloud Control reminded their oldest fans of the band’s founding charm – a welcome nostalgic nod that acknowledged the ever-changing progression of their sound over the past five years.
