I HEART HIROSHIMA
The album Tuff Teef is now available in the UK and across Europe and has started getting some good radio action there. The album also got great reviews in the NME (8/10) and Kerrang (KKKK) – see below.
The final shows for the year and into the new year as they spend some quality time working out songs for a new album in 2009…
SUN 30 NOV – BRISBANE POWERHOUSE
All ages free entry 3 – 6pm
Plus very special guests LLOYD & MICHAEL and WOELV who both performed great sets last night at the Step Inn after a rather dramatic evening storm. These North American underground favourites will return to Brisbane after their series of shows down south. Also on the bill will be the instrumental THE NARWHALS making for an haunting collection for this final Powerhouse Sunday Livespark for the year
LLOYD & MICHAEL are Katy Davidson and M. Ritchey, who first met in the late 90s while rooming at college in Portland, Oregon. Together they formed the first incarnation of Dear Nora. After drifting in different directions, Katy and Ritchey had an emotional reunion in 2006 when they both ended up living in Los Angeles. They named their new band using their masculine middle names (Ritchey’s is Lloyd, Katy’s is Michael) and recorded their debut album Just As God Made Us out in Australia on Valve. “The Lloyd & Michael record is floaty and psychedelic and insane…It sounds a little bit like a Yes record, complete with birds and mountains, and with some unstoppable pop songs.” - Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie)
WOELV is Genevieve Castree, French Canadian graphic artist and fractured folk musician. Her dark, haunting, political album second album Tout Seul Dans La Foret En Plein Jour, Avez Vous Peur? (All Alone In The Forest In Broad Daylight, Are You Scared?) was released this year by Chapter Music. www.opaon.ca
SAT 20 DEC – THE ZOO, Brisbane
Doors 8pm and on sale now through Oztix outlets and www.thezoo.com.au
After a year of nuttiness, crack the shell at the VALVE XMAShup featuring I HEART HIROSHIMA hot off the rack writing new material; AN HORSE cruisng back in from a month or 2 touring the US prior to their Australian tour with Tegan & Sara and the release of the debut album Rearrange Beds; SEKIDEN warming up for a long overdue appearance; DEL TORO toasting all with the blustering instrumental turbulence; and along for the finger food, SECRET BIRDS. Time to celebrate…
MON 22 DEC – THE ANNANDALE HOTEL, Sydney
Doors 8pm and on sale now through the Annandale.
The Annandale Hotel is the venue hosting the long-threatened showdown between the old school stylings of Sydney’s Smudge vs the brat-ish pop of Brisbane’s finest, I Heart Hiroshima. Smudge has returned to the touring fray in 2008 with dates up and down the east coast with new material in tow and more writing and recording slated for 2009.
THURS 8 JAN – SUNSET SOUNDS, Brisbane Riverstage
Doors 3pm and on sale now through www.ticketmaster.com.au
The Falls Festival providing their first brisbane foray with their 2 day event in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens & Riverstage have had the decency to invite I Heart Hiroshima on the event playing the second day with the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Santogold, The Grates, Donovan Frankenreiter and more.
TUFF TEEF out now on Valve/MGM
I HEART HIROSHIMA 8/10
Tuff Teef (Valve)
As spine-twitchingly exciting as I Heart Hiroshima’s debut is, at times it feels like you’ve dug up an early-’90s hipster’s time machine and are working your way through the precious demo tapes hidden within. HIghly strung guitars are made all the more twangable by the notable absence of a bass player, while the vocal duties are split down the middle – with drummer Susie Patten’s reluctant riot-grrrlish stylings on the clattering alt.pop of ‘Lungs’ and ‘Crime” and guitarist Matthew Somers doing his best agit-punk Pavement vox on ‘Wires’ and ‘Surgery’. It adorns the Brisbane-based band with a relic rock feel that gives a final nod to the contemporary with closer ‘Stop That’ flaunting a stripped-down Killers strut. Vital, be it 1993 or 2008. Leonie Cooper NME – October 11 2008
I HEART HIROSHIMA KKKK
Tuff Teef (Valve)
AUSSIE INDIE-ROCK TRIO FOLLOW THEIR OWN PATH ON DEBUT ALBUM. Brisbane’s I Heart Hiroshima are one of the most instantly loveable new bands to have emerged in a while. Everything about them is slightly at odds with the world – the line-up consists of two guitarists and a drummer (and no bassist), all three of them sharing vocal duties to create a ramshackle but tightly wound sound that nods to arty forebears like Sleater Kinney, Les Savy Fav and Sonic Youth but barrels off in it sown strange, sweet direction. It’s music with brains, complex but naggingly ca=tchy and thoroughly charming, and while they’re uniley to take over the charts, there’s every chance they’l become firm favourites of those in the know. FOR FANS OF: Sonic Youth, The Dismemberment Plan. Emma Johnston KERRANG - October 18 2008
I HEART HIROSHIMA
Tuff Teef
****
Alessandro Bonette 20/11/08
Indie come si comanda
C’è un gruppo in Australia che sta lentamente conquistando il pubblico indie grazie ad una miscela esplosiva di melodie infettive e dinamiche irresistibili per la gioia degli amanti di quel pop-rock alternativo obliquo ma non troppo. Si tratta dei I Heart Hiroshima, trio costituito da due chitarre (badate bene non c’è il basso) ed una batteria con tutti e tre i componenti che si alternano alla voce. Debuttano sulla lunga distanza con “Tuff Teef”, un disco che si piazza di diritto sul podio delle classifiche indie-rock di questo 2008 oramai giunto al termine.
Traiettorie leggermente sghembe che inseguono il cantato emotivamente intenso di Matthew Somers spesso contrapposto alla dolce voce di Susie Patten, delicate dissonanze che intrecciano sonorità tanto immediate quanto sbilenche per un festival di musica indie nell’approccio e nel cuore. Immaginatevi gliEnvelopes ispirati per la durata di un album intero, un ibrido riuscito tra Sonic Youth e Pixies, un caleidoscopio di note e colori ed avrete una grossa idea di cosa sia nascosto nei dodici episodi in scaletta.
Facendo leva su schemi sonori dalla semplicità disarmante pur mantenendo sempre alti interesse ed accessibilità, il trio originario di Brisbane ha confezionato un lavoro effervescente che non passerà assolutamente inosservato. Una splendida quanto inattesa sorpresa da ascoltare tutto d’un fiato.
