Russian Winters

“I was already into this song and then the trumpets came out! Then vocal harmonies! This tune just keeps giving and giving. Awesome stuff.”
4/5
Dom Alessio, triple j
- JJJ Unearthed

To start with, their new single Another Chance is an absolute cracker. Excitedly led by some in-vogue high hat tapping, Another Chance ooh ooh's it's way into your ears and settles in for a long cold winter. A bona fide dancefloor pop song...Overall, what was impressive about Russian Winters was their on-stage confidence and ability to concisely and faultlessly brood their tunes on stage…a local band to look out for in 2008.”
David Craddock - Xpress Mag

Somewhat of a Perth pop Supergroup, Russian Winters rush from light to dark in a single song, injecting their catchy melodies with thought provoking lyrics and clever arrangements. A band of great musicians who have themselves been in some of Perth’s most successful bands. Russian Winters are all class. - Xpress Mag

Packed full of incredibly tight pop…I feel guilty enjoying hooks this sweet. Russian Winters are doing it like they invented the genre.
Jaymes Brown
- Drum Media

What do you get when you grab a large handful of The Cure, some Phoenix and a few Brit rock allsorts and mix them together in a studio? The answer: the debut EP from Perth indie 4 piece, Russian Winters. Whilst their influences are evident, this collection of 6 tracks shows that pop doesn't have to derivative. Give up the Ghost is for listeners who don't want the tedious fluff of commercial radio offers. Russian Winters will be the Aussie act to look out for in 2009. - Juice Magazine Malaysia

Russian Winters - Give Up The Ghost
Russian Winters’ previous single Another Chance was the sort of song that could turn a good band into a phenomenal one-hit-wonder. As singles go, it’s a hard act to follow (and on a few tracks here they simply can’t). Nonetheless, shifted from its own CD to this six-track EP, Another Chance gets only second billing behind a newer track, Toy. Whoever made that call got it right. Leading off the EP with a track like Toy is a risk-free move.
Toy is pure confectionary; somehow miraculously nutritious and fat-free, it is very hard to turn down, and leaves you craving the same again, please. It is, put simply, an unbelievably good pop song.
Half the reason for this is that Toy is a triumph of arrangement and production. It’s not often that a band can wring every last drop of potential from a song, but Russian Winters have done it here. The attention to detail in every aspect - performance, recording, mixing – is exceptional, and the hard work has paid off. Luckily it’s all done without adding very much. As with most of the tracks on this EP, they just optimize what is already there.
What’s there with Toy is a bouncy, bittersweet highlight package of early 1980s band-pop, propelled by pretty guitars and some judicious cloning of The Smiths’ rhythm section.
Russian Winters’ Matty G (bass) and Ben Crooke (drums) tend to pull every song up by its bootstraps, but here they literally couldn’t do a better job. They give every part the accents and/or note-choices needed to make it work, contrasting each section with the others and weaving threads and twists as if plotting out a novel.
Matty G is to Russian Winters what Peter Hook is to New Order, but with the opposite effect: Hook’s playing is the most tasteful sort of window dressing, but G’s work is the house itself, and the house is jumping.
As a band, Russian Winters know how to pace themselves, treating their four-minute-mile songs more like marathons. They rarely apply sprinkles before the third chorus. The first instances are left to parade naked as examples of inherent good form. By the time they start putting on the icing, you’ve already bought the cake on the strength of its richness and texture.
When they finally throw on some ‘ooh-ooh’ vocals and extra guitars, you’re in danger of having an ‘American Pie’ moment on the counter. - Wheatbelt Mercury