Live Review: Mono, Fourteen Nights At Sea, Tangents

The sun hadn't even set when Sydney quartet Tangents took the stage. It's been a few years since this cello, drum, keyboard and guitar group has played live, and let's hope it isn't so long between drinks in the future. The group's generative and improvisational style of music recalls classics of post-rock like Tortoise and Do Make Say Think, though they ebb and flow into much heavier and more driving territory than either of these groups. They're one of the finest new experimental-rock acts out of Sydney, and it's a pleasure to see them back.

Things got a lot heavier a lot quicker with Melbourne's Fourteen Nights At Sea. Performing tracks from their newly released third album Minor Light, the now five-piece belted their way through their set. While undoubtedly heavy and droning, the wall of noise was never monotonous — the layering and complex rhythms the band play with keep everything exciting and powerful.

It's always great having Japan's Mono visiting our shores, as they never fail to show off why they're one of the most legendary names in post-rock today. To a certain degree, Mono have a formula for their songs — establish a musical theme, build on this and repeat with increasingly heavy variations. That they are able to build such complex, beautiful and powerful sonic landscapes within this framework is why they have the following that they do. Slow build-ups quickly yielded fiercely intense guitar jams, reaching the space the band love to exist in, equally stretched between instrumental metal and dreamy shoegaze. Through occasional incorporation of the piano, delicacy was brought to the fore, and this interplay between violent and peaceful dynamics is what makes a Mono show terrific. Because for all the dirges, droning and frankly crushing noise passages, Mono remain a hopeful band — with beauty it ultimately shines through the darkness.