THE RED PAINTINGS

THE RED PAINTINGS - Drum Magazine - Bar Broadway (Sydney) - June 06.


I'm tempted to describe this band as an "acquired taste", but I might get arrested for impersonating other music journo's, (or a schizophrenic food critic). So I'll just say The Red Paintings, from Brisbane, do take a little time to digest, and one may be forgiven for thinking they were from a country, or planet, that we never knew existed. Their music is different, but fascinating all the same. Donning heavy make-up, Kimonos, wigs, robot appendages, and blasting out a feast of guitar, violin, cello, bass & drums, The Red Paintings can be hard to take in all at once. They slowly drag you away from the bar, lure you in, and slam the door behind you. Their haunting lyrics and arrangements play games with your head until Stockholm Syndrome finally creeps in. I couldnt blink, let alone tap my feet. By the encore I was totally fucking mesmerised. These guys could have told me to have sex with the cigarette machine, and i would have, transformed out of all recognition.
And then a glorius chorus (i think it was a chorus?) springs out of nowhere, opens the curtains and lets the light pour in! That split second at a live show where you become so overwhelmed with inspiration you wouldnt wish for anything else in the world, totally consumed in the moment. After an epic outro had finished dangling me around like a puppet, I eventually took control of my own legs, and walked outside with the highest regard for The Red Paintings. One of those spooky experiences when you can't quite figure out what just happened to you, and why you can't stop smiling. I checked my body for strange marks and felt for any signs of probing, then looked up at the stars wondering who or what put me here. It may take a good listen, but I highly recommend you sit in a dark corner, and let The Red Paintings take control for a while
- Drum Magazine - Bar Broadway (Sydney)

THE RED PAINTINGS - Minnesota Daily News - First Avenue - Oct 18, 06.

Indie Aussies The Red Paintings were recently invited to join the Dresden Dolls on their tour of Australia and New Zealand and are now (fortunately for stateside music heads) accompanying them on their U.S. fall tour as well. The Paintings brought a sci-fi aesthetic to their driving guitar and drum sound (a bit like Ladytron meets REM, only harder), and then tempered it with the elegance of violin and cello (sans cellist this tour). Then they added sugar on top with their geisha-meets-alien attire and humans-as-canvas cohorts (volunteers’ bodies were painted to the music while film clips of explosions and UFOs were projected behind them). It was an apt panorama for the songs from their latest recording, Destroy the Robots. Before the set closed, Dresden Dolls drum god Brian Viglione added his guitar to their fittingly brazen cover of the Sex Pistol’s “God Save the Queen.”...Before ending a soon-to-be legendary First Avenue main room show, the dolls were joined onstage by Trash McSweeny of The Red Paintings for a passionate rendition of Tears for Fears' "Mad World." Ah, the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd.
- Minnesota Daily News

THE RED PAINTINGS - Faster Louder- Roundhouse (Sydney) - Oct 9, 06.

Shortly after, The Red Paintings deliver an audio-visual rock assault. While apocalyptic imagery attacks the eye, and several painters attack either traditional canvas or more improvised human versions, the garishly outfitted Trash McSweeney and his geisha-styled colleagues rip through a spine-tingling set underpinned by the primal bass of Amanda Holmes and Andy Davis’s tight drumming. Dead Children’ and ‘Dead Adults’ are yin-yang perfection of intensity then quietness while ‘The Revolution is Never Coming’ enjoys its own mid-song mini sing-along while Trash thrashes around the stage manically. They conclude with Trash mesmerising (perhaps literally) with a fist-sized pocket watch as cellist Wayne Jennings screams the Alice-in-Wonderland intro to ‘Streets Came in Through my Window’. Surreal stuff.Provocative as ever, The Red Paintings should stir up US & English audiences on their forthcoming tour supporting The Dresden Dolls.
- Faster Louder

THE RED PAINTINGS - 'WALLS' SPUTNIK REVIEW 2006.

The Red Paintings are a five piece, Australian arthouse Rock group. They are building quite a stong reputation with their EP's, and incredibly theatrical live shows. I've never seen, or heard, of anything like them on stage before. Walls is their 6th release, and is what I believe to be their best.

Walls opens the EP wonderfully. The intro is sad, and helps to set the mood of the EP. The song is probably the most upbeat on the EP, thanks to the verse/chorus, but it also has a great little bridge. I love the violin throughout it.

The Streets Fell Into My Window is a pretty crazy song. It opens with a narrated reading from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Before long, a tribal sounding drum beat kicks in, along with swirling background and the reading becomes similiar to that of a madman. The song flows steadily, keeping the a drum & bass rythm throughout the verses, and a Red Paintings style distorted chorus. The end of the song is cool, with Trash pulling off some cool effects on the guitar, and "the strings go nuts".

Dead Adults is the successor to Dead Children. It's a slow building song, with some cool delay effects throughout the first half of the song. The violin is fingerpicked throughout that time. After two and a half minutes the song becomes a little more exciting. What feels like a long procession of palm muted power chords rises to the songs climax, before eventually calming to a long outro.

Mad World, originally written by Tears For Fears, and later covered by Gary Jules, now undergoes more changes. I honestly believe this is the best version of the song I've heard. Tears For Fears wrote it like an 80's pop song, Gary Jules brought out some of the sadness about it, but The Red Paintings have outshined him here. The acoustic chords blend perfectly with the chello and violin, and Trash's vocals are brilliant. The song just seems to have a lot more feeling than any of the prior versions.

Portrait Of A Dead Soul sounds pretty cool. The song structure changes every minute or so, so it doesn't get tiresome. The vocals, strings and guitar dominate this track, with a distinct lack of Drums and Bass, something the band seems to do often. Nice easy listen really.

Walls (Alternative Ending) is pretty much what the title says. It's Walls, but the ending is extended with a continuation the last a minute or so longer than the first version.

Signals From The Frontier is a rather alien sounding track. It reminds of Radioheads No Suprises a little. It begins with plenty of spacey effects and a radio transmission describing the solar system. It continues as so, but just gets a little weirder as it procedes. It also has an annoying buzzing sound throughout the track.


Overall - The EP is pretty darn good. If your looking for something thats going to impress you with technical ability, don't bother. However, if your looking for an excellent easy listen, and are a sucker for the Violin, pick it up. Every song is very listenable, with the first 5 tracks being outstanding. Four stars.

G, Macintosh. http://www.sputnikmusic.com
- SPUTNIK

THE RED PAINTINGS - 'DESTROY THE ROBOTS' MESS & NOISE MAGAZINE REVIEW JULY 2006
Having gained a reputation as one of Australia's most eclectic live bands, Brisbane's The Red Paintings latest offering does nothing to harm their reputation. While the man/machine themes might stray a little close to Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Trash McSweeney's outfit have produced an EP full of riffs and big choruses you'll be humming while you rewire your toaster into a pacemaker. The production is lush and adds a sense of weight to the driving guitars while strings slither their way through the mix creating a tension between the futuristic themes and the music carrying them. The unpredictable arrangements continually breathe life into the songs, tugging the listener between the subtle breakdowns of strings and toms and the wall of sound choruses. The title track builds over a violin and cello theme before exploding out of the speakers like homemade cluster bombs wired together while listening to Muse, with the energy levels remaining on overload throughout the EP

Toby Dundas

- MESS & NOISE MAGAZINE

THE RED PAINTINGS - MARK RYDEN IN WONDERLAND SHOW - The Globe Sept 24, 05.

The Red Paintings are fucking amazing. Their drums, bass, guitar, cello and violin line-up is different in itself, but combine the dramatic rock and elegant strings with powerful elements of stage theatre, and you’ve got absolute magic unfolding to their empowering or-chestration. The show is themed on American art-ist Mark Ryden; the band are dressed up as characters with stage props from his paintings, there are people painting canvas and human flesh. There’s so much going on it could all very easily turn into a debacle, but under the guide of charm-ing frontman Trash McSweeney (who looks disturbingly pretty as a princess) the focus is on the music. Classily turning imagination to reality, The Red Paintings are genius.

JADE PHAM, RAVE MAGAZINE, 27/09/05
- TIMEOFF MAGAZINE

THE RED PAINTINGS - 'WALLS' SYDNEY HERALD REVIEW (Sony/BMG)*****


The Red Paintings will take you to Wonderland and back with their psychedelic rock.
Flamboyance and artistic ambition aren't a problem for this Brisbane five-piece. Big ideas, big sounds, quirks that could turn into full-blown eccentricities and the temptation to overreach are the order of the day. Live, they have a reputation for outrageous costumes, theatrical side plays and galloping enthusiasm. You can sense all of this in the seven songs of this EP. The title track, which opens the show, edges into the room with violin and a slow drum roll. Yet before the first minute is over, those drums are rattling and the guitar is chasing them down, while singer Trash McSweeney vaults over it all.That's merely a taster for The Streets Fell into My Window, which starts with a precisely enunciated reading from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and then builds a threatening mood that periodically explodes in the kind of heavy bursts you might find on a System of a Down album.This is psychedelia the way it's meant to be: not trippy-dippy and "wow, look, the sky is orange", but cascading elements of power and whimsy treated equally. A place where an orchestra, classical guitar and pirate-ship analogies appear in a song about losing hope when families fracture. Where a sample-driven track such as Signals from the Frontier starts to sound like incipient madness in space. Where no emotion is left to walk unaided. It's why Walls fits neatly on the shelf next to recent hyper-dramatic releases by the likes of the Decemberists and Arcade Fire, providing a flair for the florid that is all too easily washed away by fear in so many other bands. That would be fear of failing, but also fear of looking foolish, which is a bigger killer of art. There's no fear here.


By Bernard Zuel - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
July 8, 2005
- SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

HE RED PAINTINGS-
'YOUR TEARS ARE WARNING SIGNS' ALBUM REVIEW


Cry me a river, Like a Virgin Mary

The Red Paintings have always done things a little differently. Their live shows aim and succeed at being bigger, bolder and riskier than what other local bands even contemplate. And with this new album, the boldness and the risks keep coming. The 11 songs here were all recorded live for a 4zzz session a few months ago with a stripped down version of the band. Absent are the drums, bass and all the epic rock theatrics and in their place are cello, violin and main man Trash McSweeney playing acoustic guitar and singing. Presented in this strings format, the songs are as equally impressive as in their usual explosive live incarnations. Seeing and hearing them as just bare bones reveals the strength and originality of the song writing and the talent and beauty in the playing.Their recent single Rain should have been a huge smash hit and the acoustic version here is a true highlight alongside other great darkly melodic treats like Dead Children, Stackhat, Cinema Love and The Cancer Song. The Red Paintings sing that The Revolution Is Never Coming but let's hope that their musical revolution comes soon. They're a band who deserve to have their risk rewarded.


RAVE MAGAZINE


- RAVE MAGAZINE