Avenue

Try this now. Imagine bottom-end muscle in a head-on collision with a happy headspace. What about 4D soundscapes twisted around a prog rock locomotive? Free spirits disguised in stark black and white attire? Good looks behind great songs? Young Adelaide-based pop trio, Avenue makes this bunch of quirky contradictions seem perfectly normal.

Avenue’s second release Colourblind presents exciting exploration and development for the band. There’s more muscle and texture, a more ambitious poly-layering of sounds, a heightened maturity in the lyrics and vocals.

Consisting of brothers Lucas and Miles Sly plus Ryan Mifsud, Avenue’s short history has seen them notch up a debut EP that hit number 4 on the Triple J Unearthed pop chart, orchestrate charts for the Immanuel College Strings to perform with them at the Marion Domain Theatre, win a Carclew Off The Couch award for live popularity and support ARIA-winning group The Audreys at Adelaide’s Elder Hall.

For their second EP release, Avenue have focused on writing concise, hook-laden songs sung with a lofty and effortless tenor: expressive, with intent and purpose. Drawing vocal influences from the likes of Dallas Green (City and Colour) and Adam Duritz (Counting Crows), then adding the jazz-trained rhythm section with a mighty prog rock attitude, the Colourblind recordings head along a completely different and exciting siding.

As if this isn’t enough, the sonically superior multi-instrumentalist and producer/engineer Jarrad Payne (1.1 Immermann, Shaolin Afronauts) uses his idiosyncratic abilities to marry Avenue’s commercially crafted pop with enough weird shit to make Colourblind sound instantly enticing, yet slightly unsettling.

Yep, Avenue is a seasoned act that belies its youth. It restores one’s sense of hope in “good pop”. Tasteful rendering of clever tracks sees the new EP release Colourblind connecting with a wider demographic - live as well as on radio.