What do you do if you’re in Canberra at 8.30 in the morning and have to be in Melbourne that night for a gig? Start drinking and swallow some ketamine if you’re on tour with Kira Puru & the Bruise and Post Paint, apparently.
Launching their new split single, “Crest Of The Wave”, both bands were in top (albeit a bit manic) form for the Melbourne leg of their national tour.
Opening act The Townhouses, the solo project of artist Leigh Hannah, met early comers as they climbed the stairs into the Grace Darling’s band room.
Punters lounged around on the floor, lolling their heads along to Hannah’s dreamy electronic pop tunes. The nostalgic ode to good times spent in an ex-lover’s house, “Nag Champa”, was the highlight of the set and captured the mood of the room perfectly.
Hannah’s voice and glitter blue Danelectro guitar filled the air like smoke from a midnight joint, making for a chilled lead-up to the following outrageous set.
Confused and disorientated are two feelings you might have if seeing Post Paint for the first time.
Aside from frontman Bligh Twyford -Moore’s incomprehensible ramblings about everything from Tony Abbot’s cock to the deep K-hole he was trying to crawl out of, Post Paint play a mash of rock, folk and electronica unconfined to any specific genre.
In lesser hands this could become a great heap of noise, but Post Paint’s excellent songwriting skills ensure each track is propelled in a certain direction.
If you like to think in band comparisons, they’re somewhere in the vein of Dirty Three and The Drones with a drum machine.
Inviting Puru onstage, the band set upon the single they had come to launch.
“Crest Of The Wave” has a certain folk gypsy feel to it, given off by the very talented Post Paint violinist Ailsa Fulcher. There’s an anxious feel to her playing that urges the song along while Puru and Twyford-Moore interweave their vocal melodies.
There’s also an industrial undertone to the track, due mostly to the electronic beat underpinning it and the guitar fuzz towards the end of the song. It’s a killer collaboration, bringing together both bands’ highly original takes on music yet retaining a pop sensibility.
Kira Puru has that ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude that only takes one song for a person to get when you first see her. It’s seemingly unspoken but slips out from time to time while responding to enthusiastic audience members.
There’s something inherently dangerous about her and the band that seeps into their music. There’s menace and anger in their older songs that, according to interviews from last year, the band seem to be moving away from.
One of their newer songs “When All Your Love Is Not Enough” (released last year) definitely displays lighter elements, but still contains a dark undercurrent.
There was something definitely off for the band’s first few songs, but it seemed more to do with the sound levels than what was happening on stage. When it cleared up the band really fell into their stride with old favourite “The Liar”.
The Bruise remain one of tightest bands around and Puru’s vocals soared over their sonic manipulations with all the power and force that she’s renowned for.
During a song break, Puru decided to let slip the daily happenings on the road to Melbourne.
“We were in Canberra at 8.30 this morning and had to make it here tonight, so we started drinking. Just to let you know where all the K-hole talk came from.”
Consistently drawing comparisons from classic divas like Etta James and Sarah Vaughn, Puru blasts all of her emotion and energy into her voice. You can see the strain on her face, as if holding and controlling the torrent of her voice is tearing her apart.
That torrent is reflected in the music of The Bruise with the dirty grit of Jamieson Shaw’s bass lines, Geordie Malone’s screeching guitar, and David Pearce’s sharp-as- a-butcher’s-knife drumming.
Often live reviews will stretch lines of hyperbole kilometres long to not offend anyone. But then you’ll find a band like Kira Puru & The Bruise who actually deserve it.
