Live Review: sleepmakeswaves, Breaking Orbit, Luke Carlino

Armed with his voice, two microphones, a guitar and a handful of pedals, Luke Carlino started the night off in a quickly filling Jive bar. With glimpses of Dallas Green and Thrice, Carlino has a naturally raw and powerful voice and, by using pedals like delays and looping, he’s able to make his solo act sound like a band. Being able to use these pedals well evolves the performance to something more than just a guy with a guitar and good voice.

Energetic four-piece Breaking Orbit used their energy on stage and tight-sounding progressive-rock to excite the crowd. Like a lot of progressive-rock bands, there’s always so much going on but the stand-out bands are the ones that are able to have complex layers of sounds without it becoming muddy. Breaking Orbit clearly are one of those acts. Having a tribal percussion feel adds a lot of interest and a clear highlight was the instrumental song Machiguenga, where they broke out in this unhinged beat mixed with melodic guitars.

Bring out the long hair and the metal headbang; Sleepmakeswaves are here and there was no warming into it, the headbanging started instantly. And it continued through the night with the crowd caught in some sort of spell, due to the hypnotic feel of the guitars played perfectly by Jonathan Khor and Otto Wicks-Green. Coming to the end of the Love Of Cartography album tour, Sleepmakeswaves have made a statement – that an instrumental band can make you feel something without the need for lyrics.

Having a microphone on stage is usually an odd thing to see with a band like this, but bassist Alex Wilson used it to thank and communicate with the crowd. Going out of the way to connect with the crowd is not something that generally happens with instrumental bands, which goes to show how much their fans mean to them. What makes this band special is their ability to put so much heart and soul into every chord, every hit of the drum kit and every movement, yet still be able to play so precisely.