Live Review: Howling Bells, 44th Sunset, Glassmaps

Hitting the tour circuit following the June release of their fourth studio album Heartstrings, Howling Bells are back in their mother country and made Perth their first stop.

With Perth boys 44th Sunset in support, the band played Amplifier on Saturday night to a smallish but enthusiastic audience.

44th Sunset, front man Nick Thompson does a lot of dancing, if you can call it that. Convulsively throwing limbs about with gusto might be more like it. The theatrics are terribly fun to watch and made up for wobbly vocals and a somewhat untidy rhythm section. 44th Sunset debuted some promising new material and further tightening can take them from good to great.

A short break and then Joel Stein (brother of Howling Bells front woman Juanita Stein) jumped up to debut a selection of songs from his new solo project, Glassmaps.

As Howling Bells’ lead guitarist, his voice is usually one of several layers of harmony in the background. In the foreground, it turns out his voice is lovely. Alone with his guitar he was a pleasure to take in and it will be interesting to see where he takes the project as he builds more elements into his live shows.

Joining Joel on stage the Howling Bells opened in a perfunctory fashion, moving through new tunes Original Sin and Your Love with barely a deviation from the recorded version. Though they played perfectly, the first half of the set lacked spontaneity – perhaps they were still warming up.

However, Cities Burning Down marked a turning point when Juanita (dressed in gold lamé and big dangling earrings) suddenly seemed to get her groove, playing around with the vocal line and moving about the stage in her rhythm-guitar-sway. Joel’s slide guitar riff in Setting Sun was fluid and playful and Low Happening was a highlight for the super-tight rhythm section and moody atmosphere that the band is so good at creating.

The stage at Amplifier backs onto a wall; Juanita announced that since they couldn’t go ‘backstage’ they would simply offer the encore without the usual walk-off-walk-on ritual. Finishing with Broken Bones, that was a wrap. Howling Bells played a highly accomplished set and given that Australia gets to see so little of them, it was a treat to see them loosen up and add something new to what we’ve already heard on the albums.