Peabody

The single Got You On My Radar doesn't really do Peabody justice. Receiving high rotation on Triple J, ...Radar gave me the impression that Peabody were an up and coming pop-rock band, perhaps with some catchy choruses, but a yet to develop their own identity. How wrong I was. 'The New Violence' is a tight, aggressive rock album that reveals Peabody to have quite a mature sound. Producer Jamie Hutchings (Bluebottle Kiss) keeps things crisp and clean throughout, akin to his band's last two albums 'Revenge is Slow' and 'Come Across'. Actually, Peabody also have a very Bluebottle Kiss-influenced sound: bass heavy, led by soaring, playful guitars and an edgy, raw forcefulness.

'The New Violence' is a complex album. It's one for the purists, not easy-listening. Don't get me wrong, though; it's a great CD but like really rich food, is best consumed in moderation. Bruno Brayovic delivers his fervently poetic, world-weary lyrics at a teasingly medium pace. The contrast between the lyrics and the manic guitars and pounding drums is the defining point of the band.

The repeated titular line of I Find The Words in the song of the same title are mesmerising; the swirling, distorted guitars and a double beating drum engender something of a hysteric tribal ceremony. Even when Bruno slows the pace down on I Don't Know, the gentle sincerity of his lyrics seem to provoke the band, clearly itching to rock out. They're immediately let loose again in the short and zippy Don't Lose It, whilst Got Your Hooks In concludes the album with both their most quiet and exuberant moments. Kudos to everyone involved in 'The New Violence': it's an unexpected masterpiece.

Steven Williams
DB Magazine
- DB Magazine - Adelaide

The single Got You On My Radar doesn't really do Peabody justice. Receiving high rotation on Triple J, ...Radar gave me the impression that Peabody were an up and coming pop-rock band, perhaps with some catchy choruses, but a yet to develop their own identity. How wrong I was. 'The New Violence' is a tight, aggressive rock album that reveals Peabody to have quite a mature sound. Producer Jamie Hutchings (Bluebottle Kiss) keeps things crisp and clean throughout, akin to his band's last two albums 'Revenge is Slow' and 'Come Across'. Actually, Peabody also have a very Bluebottle Kiss-influenced sound: bass heavy, led by soaring, playful guitars and an edgy, raw forcefulness.

'The New Violence' is a complex album. It's one for the purists, not easy-listening. Don't get me wrong, though; it's a great CD but like really rich food, is best consumed in moderation. Bruno Brayovic delivers his fervently poetic, world-weary lyrics at a teasingly medium pace. The contrast between the lyrics and the manic guitars and pounding drums is the defining point of the band.

The repeated titular line of I Find The Words in the song of the same title are mesmerising; the swirling, distorted guitars and a double beating drum engender something of a hysteric tribal ceremony. Even when Bruno slows the pace down on I Don't Know, the gentle sincerity of his lyrics seem to provoke the band, clearly itching to rock out. They're immediately let loose again in the short and zippy Don't Lose It, whilst Got Your Hooks In concludes the album with both their most quiet and exuberant moments. Kudos to everyone involved in 'The New Violence': it's an unexpected masterpiece.

Steven Williams
DB Magazine
- DB Magazine - Adelaide

[ Peabody - The New Violence ]
Non Zero/Shock
Well, I don’t know how to start, cos I want to get it right. That’s how Peabody start their new album, The New Violence, and it’s how I’m going to start this review. Three sentences in now, and Bruno Brayovic’s singing “ever wish you were someone else?” and I’m thinking ‘yes, yes I wish I was someone who could write the review you deserve’ because I’m at a loss. I’ve been playing The New Violence solidly for a few weeks now, and every time it starts, my brain stops. So I’ll continue plagiarising Peabody lyrics to pad this out. Now I’m up to track six, I Find The Words, which starts “ever lost for meaning, ever been tongue-tied?” and thumps into a chorus that mondegreens as “Can’t Find the Words” and is the soundtrack to my current writer’s block.
Earlier, during the hypnotic The Weight Just Right, Bruno garretts out something along the lines of “nobody cares because la la la, la la la, take this record, take this guitar” and that seems as good an explanation for what’s happening to my brain as any. La la la, who cares about intellectualising about music in print, la la la, play this record, play some air-guitar!
Sure I could pontificate about how the opening bars of the title track prance vaguely into something Nirvana-ish, just for a moment, before burning the Midnight Oil (no, you dit-ent!), or how Get Your Hooks In IS the Pixies and Bruno must be the second coming of Black Francis (in the absence of his coming to Australia), or how Sydney ‘it girl’ Sarah Blasko’s vocals on first single Got You On My Radar alarm your spine but not quite as chillingly as the menacing Song For Val, which she also guests on. Ben Chamie, who writes most of Peabody’s lyrics, thinks Song For Val has a “fucked up nursery rhyme” quality to it, and considering the scarytale origins of nursery rhymes, he’s not wrong. I Find The Words could happily soundtrack a John Hughes or a John Waters film. Wrecking Ball – with all the spitfire venom that the current political climate inspires – achieves in a single strum what Powderfinger have been failing at for years. Opening track Synaesthesia is just beautiful, but it’s also the one that causes this brain-braking, like a bucket of liquid Peabody has been poured into my skull and my brain quietly drowns. To rip off Chamie again, I Don’t Know is as close to folk as Peabody get, which thankfully isn’t very close. He name-drops Sebadoh, which is fair enough. Don’t Lose It reminds me of The Sex Pistols.
But, really, what I think doesn’t matter. The whole of Synaesthesia is about how each of us experiences the world from our own biased point of view, un-replicable by others. And ultimately, words on a page can’t really tell you much about sound anyway. For me, The New Violence is my favourite album of the year so far; when I play it, nothing else matters, everything else disappears. You may have a different experience of it, but I really hope not.

Melanie Sheridan
BEAT MAGAZINE
- Beat Magazine - Melbourne

[ Peabody - The New Violence ]
Non Zero/Shock
Well, I don’t know how to start, cos I want to get it right. That’s how Peabody start their new album, The New Violence, and it’s how I’m going to start this review. Three sentences in now, and Bruno Brayovic’s singing “ever wish you were someone else?” and I’m thinking ‘yes, yes I wish I was someone who could write the review you deserve’ because I’m at a loss. I’ve been playing The New Violence solidly for a few weeks now, and every time it starts, my brain stops. So I’ll continue plagiarising Peabody lyrics to pad this out. Now I’m up to track six, I Find The Words, which starts “ever lost for meaning, ever been tongue-tied?” and thumps into a chorus that mondegreens as “Can’t Find the Words” and is the soundtrack to my current writer’s block.
Earlier, during the hypnotic The Weight Just Right, Bruno garretts out something along the lines of “nobody cares because la la la, la la la, take this record, take this guitar” and that seems as good an explanation for what’s happening to my brain as any. La la la, who cares about intellectualising about music in print, la la la, play this record, play some air-guitar!
Sure I could pontificate about how the opening bars of the title track prance vaguely into something Nirvana-ish, just for a moment, before burning the Midnight Oil (no, you dit-ent!), or how Get Your Hooks In IS the Pixies and Bruno must be the second coming of Black Francis (in the absence of his coming to Australia), or how Sydney ‘it girl’ Sarah Blasko’s vocals on first single Got You On My Radar alarm your spine but not quite as chillingly as the menacing Song For Val, which she also guests on. Ben Chamie, who writes most of Peabody’s lyrics, thinks Song For Val has a “fucked up nursery rhyme” quality to it, and considering the scarytale origins of nursery rhymes, he’s not wrong. I Find The Words could happily soundtrack a John Hughes or a John Waters film. Wrecking Ball – with all the spitfire venom that the current political climate inspires – achieves in a single strum what Powderfinger have been failing at for years. Opening track Synaesthesia is just beautiful, but it’s also the one that causes this brain-braking, like a bucket of liquid Peabody has been poured into my skull and my brain quietly drowns. To rip off Chamie again, I Don’t Know is as close to folk as Peabody get, which thankfully isn’t very close. He name-drops Sebadoh, which is fair enough. Don’t Lose It reminds me of The Sex Pistols.
But, really, what I think doesn’t matter. The whole of Synaesthesia is about how each of us experiences the world from our own biased point of view, un-replicable by others. And ultimately, words on a page can’t really tell you much about sound anyway. For me, The New Violence is my favourite album of the year so far; when I play it, nothing else matters, everything else disappears. You may have a different experience of it, but I really hope not.

Melanie Sheridan
BEAT MAGAZINE
- Beat Magazine - Melbourne

Peabody – The New Violence
Nonzero/Shock
Peabody ***1/2
Sydney trio return with darker intent
Grittier, nastier and far more flamboyantly melodramatic than their debut album, Professional Againster, Peabody return with a vengeance on The New Violence. The Sydney trio's sound has evolved in the time between releases. Where their debut was thick slabs of rock that didn't mess around, the sophomore set has added shades of colour, whether it be in the poppy hand-claps and jittery rhythm (and surprising keyboard) of "The Weight Just Right", or in the sneaky mood of "Song For Val".
Elsewhere, opener "Synaesthesia" and singles "Got You On My Radar" and "Wrecking Ball" hit with a coiled wallop, as explosions of furious sound leap out of the speakers. Recorded and mixed over two weeks by David Trump and produced by Bluebottle Kiss' frontman Jamie Hutchings, The New Violence is the sound of a band coming into their own.
Andrew Weaver
Rolling Stone
- Rolling Stone Magazine

Peabody – The New Violence
Nonzero/Shock
Peabody ***1/2
Sydney trio return with darker intent
Grittier, nastier and far more flamboyantly melodramatic than their debut album, Professional Againster, Peabody return with a vengeance on The New Violence. The Sydney trio's sound has evolved in the time between releases. Where their debut was thick slabs of rock that didn't mess around, the sophomore set has added shades of colour, whether it be in the poppy hand-claps and jittery rhythm (and surprising keyboard) of "The Weight Just Right", or in the sneaky mood of "Song For Val".
Elsewhere, opener "Synaesthesia" and singles "Got You On My Radar" and "Wrecking Ball" hit with a coiled wallop, as explosions of furious sound leap out of the speakers. Recorded and mixed over two weeks by David Trump and produced by Bluebottle Kiss' frontman Jamie Hutchings, The New Violence is the sound of a band coming into their own.
Andrew Weaver
Rolling Stone
- Rolling Stone Magazine

PEABODY
THE NEW VIOLENCE – NONZERO/SHOCK

The first track we heard from the album was Got You On My Radar, and it was a slice of upbeat guitar pop that you could pick as coming from the band. But abandon the notion of The New Violence being part two of previous album Professional Againster. The New Violence shows a darker side to the group, with songs that are still well crafted yet less immediate. It might not bode well for airplay, but do seek this album out as it is well worth it.

Song For Val, for example is a dark number, with a distorted bass line chugging along and the odd discordant guitar note picking out a melody line. Sarah Blasko provides some haunting vocals that add to the unnerving atmosphere of the track. Don’t Lose It has a weird guitar tuning, making it very frantic, angular pop. Got Your Hooks In sees them take a Pixies-like route, and they further augment that with answering machine messages and other subtle electronic squirts.

Guitar feedback plays a prominent part in the album’s title track, while The Weight Just Right had me thinking of some 80’s dance number, resplendent with “la la las” and handclaps. It’s not cheesy mind you – probably encroaching more on the post punk/new wave territory (but definitely NOT like what’s floating around at the moment).

For some reason I keep on arriving on reference points for Midnight Oil too. I guess this can work in a couple of ways: musically there are Oils-like moments (I Find The Words maybe); and their lyrics tackle issues like the social and political climate (such as on Wrecking Ball). Don’t go thinking it’s Oz rock though, because as mentioned before, the band have taken a step beyond that. They still rock, let’s get that straight. It’s just they’ve added another colour to the palette as it were, and the picture they’re creating is approaching masterpiece status.

Mark Nielsen
Drum Media
- Drum Media Magazine - Sydney

PEABODY
THE NEW VIOLENCE – NONZERO/SHOCK

The first track we heard from the album was Got You On My Radar, and it was a slice of upbeat guitar pop that you could pick as coming from the band. But abandon the notion of The New Violence being part two of previous album Professional Againster. The New Violence shows a darker side to the group, with songs that are still well crafted yet less immediate. It might not bode well for airplay, but do seek this album out as it is well worth it.

Song For Val, for example is a dark number, with a distorted bass line chugging along and the odd discordant guitar note picking out a melody line. Sarah Blasko provides some haunting vocals that add to the unnerving atmosphere of the track. Don’t Lose It has a weird guitar tuning, making it very frantic, angular pop. Got Your Hooks In sees them take a Pixies-like route, and they further augment that with answering machine messages and other subtle electronic squirts.

Guitar feedback plays a prominent part in the album’s title track, while The Weight Just Right had me thinking of some 80’s dance number, resplendent with “la la las” and handclaps. It’s not cheesy mind you – probably encroaching more on the post punk/new wave territory (but definitely NOT like what’s floating around at the moment).

For some reason I keep on arriving on reference points for Midnight Oil too. I guess this can work in a couple of ways: musically there are Oils-like moments (I Find The Words maybe); and their lyrics tackle issues like the social and political climate (such as on Wrecking Ball). Don’t go thinking it’s Oz rock though, because as mentioned before, the band have taken a step beyond that. They still rock, let’s get that straight. It’s just they’ve added another colour to the palette as it were, and the picture they’re creating is approaching masterpiece status.

Mark Nielsen
Drum Media
- Drum Media Magazine - Sydney

Peabody

The New Violence (Non Zero / Shock)

Who pissed these guys off? The 2nd album from this high powered Sydney trio sees them drop the poppy '60s influences of their debut in favour of a fast and furious, post-punk '80s aesthetic. It's there in the scratchy guitars, the impassioned musical performances and the raw, compressed, distorted production. And where it's not seething, it's downright dark and evil, as in the Sarah Blasko duet "Song For Val".

But Peabody have a knack for tacking anthemic pop choruses onto their
dappled tunes. "I Find The Words", "Synaesthesia", "Got You On my
Radar" and "Got Your Hooks In" are all pointed, raw-boned pop hymns to our fucked-up times, with the latter sounding like an impossible
collision between the Pixies and Midnight Oil. And that's where these guys differ from the current crop of angular rockers - they turn their influences into something entirely original. Turn up 'The New Violence' - carnage never sounded so sweet.

Darren Atkinson.
- BMA Magazine - Canberra

Peabody

The New Violence (Non Zero / Shock)

Who pissed these guys off? The 2nd album from this high powered Sydney trio sees them drop the poppy '60s influences of their debut in favour of a fast and furious, post-punk '80s aesthetic. It's there in the scratchy guitars, the impassioned musical performances and the raw, compressed, distorted production. And where it's not seething, it's downright dark and evil, as in the Sarah Blasko duet "Song For Val".

But Peabody have a knack for tacking anthemic pop choruses onto their
dappled tunes. "I Find The Words", "Synaesthesia", "Got You On my
Radar" and "Got Your Hooks In" are all pointed, raw-boned pop hymns to our fucked-up times, with the latter sounding like an impossible
collision between the Pixies and Midnight Oil. And that's where these guys differ from the current crop of angular rockers - they turn their influences into something entirely original. Turn up 'The New Violence' - carnage never sounded so sweet.

Darren Atkinson.
- BMA Magazine - Canberra

Peabody – Annandale Hotel – Sat, May 7th
With Liam Gallagher's occasionally vacuous lyrics, Oasis proved that if you have the ability to drop your vocals into a song at just the right spot you can get away with pretty much singing anything. Without discrediting frontman Bruno's lyrical ability, Peabody achieve the same feat by ensuring that every song is ridiculously catchy from the very first listen (their new single 'Wrecking Ball' is case in point).
Bruno's infallible, punchy vocals - that sometimes border on a sly sneer - deliver lyrics in perfect synchronicity with the band's relentless energy. There's no gradual build-up of momentum; rather the intensity levels are set (and maintained) right from the opening song.
It's this impatience that makes Peabody such a consistently great live band. Refusing to stick to one sound for any great length of time, the set storms along at breakneck pace with just enough pop to produce Peabody's trademark: punk you can dance to.
Brooke Robinson
The Brag (Sydney)
16.05.2005
- Brag Magazine

Peabody – Annandale Hotel – Sat, May 7th
With Liam Gallagher's occasionally vacuous lyrics, Oasis proved that if you have the ability to drop your vocals into a song at just the right spot you can get away with pretty much singing anything. Without discrediting frontman Bruno's lyrical ability, Peabody achieve the same feat by ensuring that every song is ridiculously catchy from the very first listen (their new single 'Wrecking Ball' is case in point).
Bruno's infallible, punchy vocals - that sometimes border on a sly sneer - deliver lyrics in perfect synchronicity with the band's relentless energy. There's no gradual build-up of momentum; rather the intensity levels are set (and maintained) right from the opening song.
It's this impatience that makes Peabody such a consistently great live band. Refusing to stick to one sound for any great length of time, the set storms along at breakneck pace with just enough pop to produce Peabody's trademark: punk you can dance to.
Brooke Robinson
The Brag (Sydney)
16.05.2005
- Brag Magazine

Peabody – Got You on My Radar – Nonzero

Where the hell did this come from? Have Peabody always been this good? God, they probably have and I've been missing out all this time. 'Got you on my Radar' is an absolute fire cracker, with Bruno's history-as-it-happens guitars and vocals like a pilot-less boeing crashing through mountain tops.

It's a well deserved luxury when you have Jamie Hutchings and Sarah Blasko chiming in for the backing vocal duties, something that servies to merely compliment a slistering band in scene-stealing form.


Source- Time Off Magazine, 27/10/2004 - Time Off

Peabody – Got You on My Radar – Nonzero

Where the hell did this come from? Have Peabody always been this good? God, they probably have and I've been missing out all this time. 'Got you on my Radar' is an absolute fire cracker, with Bruno's history-as-it-happens guitars and vocals like a pilot-less boeing crashing through mountain tops.

It's a well deserved luxury when you have Jamie Hutchings and Sarah Blasko chiming in for the backing vocal duties, something that servies to merely compliment a slistering band in scene-stealing form.


Source- Time Off Magazine, 27/10/2004 - Time Off

http://angryape.com/reviews/2007/06/peabody-live

Peabody - Live
[Melbourne East Brunswick Club]
Published Monday, 18th June, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Written by Chris Chinchilla

The recently expanded and invigorated Peabody deliver a set chocker full of brilliant and finely crafted songs. Songs of incredible depth and texture, clever and carefully constructed layers of melodies, interesting and yet uplifting, deep and yet exciting and exhilarating. Full and rich guitars set over solid bass lines, powerful drums and Bruno Brayovic's heartfelt vocals searing through the mix.

The band take the bold stance of playing an entire set of new songs from their forthcoming album that frustrates Peabody's old school fans in the crowd, but to new listeners it's an emotionally charged set, full of dynamics and solid delivery. It's been a tough year for the band, but they seem happy to be back and the crowd are happy to have them back.
- http://angryape.com/reviews/2007/06/peabody-live

http://angryape.com/reviews/2007/06/peabody-live

Peabody - Live
[Melbourne East Brunswick Club]
Published Monday, 18th June, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Written by Chris Chinchilla

The recently expanded and invigorated Peabody deliver a set chocker full of brilliant and finely crafted songs. Songs of incredible depth and texture, clever and carefully constructed layers of melodies, interesting and yet uplifting, deep and yet exciting and exhilarating. Full and rich guitars set over solid bass lines, powerful drums and Bruno Brayovic's heartfelt vocals searing through the mix.

The band take the bold stance of playing an entire set of new songs from their forthcoming album that frustrates Peabody's old school fans in the crowd, but to new listeners it's an emotionally charged set, full of dynamics and solid delivery. It's been a tough year for the band, but they seem happy to be back and the crowd are happy to have them back.
- http://angryape.com/reviews/2007/06/peabody-live