Lurch & Chief
Albert Park, Victoria, Australia | Established. Jan 01, 2012 | INDIE | AFM
Music
Press
The effervescent sounds of Lurch & Chief swiftly generated a buzz when the young guns burst onto the scene a couple years back, and this five-track gem will no doubt fuel the fire already blazing.
Breathe is riddled with more of that jamming, crashing, psychedelic goodness but here Lillibeth Hall’s forceful vocal takes centre stage for more of the action (Echo, Fading Out), there’s less instantly appealing motifs that still crawl under the skin (Breathe), and a darker, confident attitude resounds (Reasonable Man), where co-vocalist Hayden Somerville lets rip with those etching, twangy pipes of his. - Themusic.com.au
This Aussie combo effortlessly blend fashionable genre earmarks on Breathe, their second EP. Perhaps that has something to do with their home base being Melbourne, the fashion capital down under. But once past a kind of gleaming surface, Lurch & Chief get spookier as the songs slither by. From the members’ preferred hair choices and swirly guitars, this band aims psychy. But add in the clean chorus pedal reverb, driving drums and some icy femme vocals seething around, and they further exude a dug up and soiled mid-’80s Brit-wave vibe too. Breathe comes out March 27 on Illusive AU, but stream it below now. - CMJ
Halfway through the opening song on Lurch & Chief’s Breathe EP, I had to eject the CD from my computer to check I hadn’t put the wrong CD in. That’s not to say that the song Echo is not a brilliant exercise in neo-grunge, but I had to make sure it wasn’t an unknown Alvvays or Warpaint album. It’s clear Lurch & Chief’s six members are now all working from the same page. As indicated by the welcome sonic misdirection of Echo, female vocalist Lilibeth Hall has taken the roll of lead singer from male vocalist Hayden Somerville on three of the EP’s five songs. The first single released from the album is the highly accessible Fading Out. It captures the same radness of Sons & Daughters, with dueling male/female vocals placed over the top of a driving Celtic punk rhythm. Hall’s revelation as lead vocalist has not resulted in a lessening of Somerville presence on the record. The song that his slightly nasal intonation and brooding lyrics really comes to the fore is Reasonable Man, the yearning and hunger communicated by Somerville is stirring. As with all the tracks on this album, Anderson and Trevisan’s slightly post-punk guitar tweaking perfectly suit the mood created by the vocals. It’s deeply satisfying to hear a local band lift their songwriting and production value to that of an international standard. - See more at: http://www.beat.com.au/music/lurch-chief-breathe#sthash.0uCXedXp.dpuf - The Beat
Discography
Wiped Out EP - 2013
Keep It Together/I'm Not There (7")
Breathe EP - 2015
Photos
Bio
Lurch & Chief’s rapid rise continues with the release of their much-anticipated second EP, Breathe.
Written over an intense two-week period in a run-down shack in country Victoria and recorded with at Birdland Studios with Lindsay Gravina, Breathe saw the band mixing up their traditional music-making approach with stunning results.
Where traditionally the Melbourne six-piece’s tunes have been born from all-in jams, the Breathe sessions had the band bunkered down for 12 hours a day, constructing songs from the ground up. The progress is immediately evident.
Lurch & Chief have come a long way since their sold-out (if slightly chaotic) first show at a Melbourne southside warehouse in late 2012. Formed as a creative outlet for close friends Alexander Trevisan (Lurch), Hayden Somerville (Chief), Lilibeth Hall, Brendan Anderson, Joel Rennison and Josh Lane, the band independently released a debut EP, Wiped Out, in 2013, home to debut single and triple J fave ‘We Are The Same’, along with fan favourite ‘Mother/Father’.
For the follow-up, Lurch & Chief wanted to push themselves out of their comfort zone, so they headed to a small place in the Grampians. Dwarfed by the stunning sandstone mountain range and freed from their usual day-to-day routines, the band locked into a groove so powerful they felt the songs were almost writing themselves. The environment put them in their most honest state-of-mind and provided the freedom to be truly focused as a group for the first time.
The result is a thrilling snapshot of life as Australian twenty-somethings in 2015. With the band dynamic continuing to evolve, Lilibeth’s role as co-vocalist is more pronounced now than ever before and the sonic palette has widened considerably. Driven by emotions including loss, love and anxiety, Breathe is a darker, more nuanced and captivating Lurch & Chief than we have experienced to date.
Band Members
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