The Smallest Room
  • Menu

    Music
    Arts
    About
    Travel
    Teach

  • MUSIC
    • record reviews
    • LIVE REVIEWS
    • features
  • ARTS
  • About
  • Travel
  • Teach
0

High Tension – Bully

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, July 2015


[rating:3.5]
Reviewing orthodoxy dictates you assess an album based on its studio merits alone. That approach collapses after seeing Melbourne metal band High Tension play live due to the indelible imprint of vocalist Karina Utomo giving her body and vocal cords over to her band’s aural assault.

On their second album, High Tension erect a landscape for Utomo to dominate and destroy with vocals that leap from bleak indifference to catastrophe in a flash. “Show you how it’s done bitch,” she slurs over brooding, fuzzed-out bass on ‘Bully’ before it erupts into stoner-doom’s best interpretation of triumph. The influence of seminal stoner rock band Kyuss is strong, especially on ‘Lapindo’, which also features the vocal tantrumming of King Parrot’s Matthew Young. ‘Guillotine’, meanwhile, channels the glory days of The Refused, ‘Iceman’ should soundtrack a wildling battle scene and the percussive misanthropy of ‘Take Control’ collides with a feedback-spiked chorus that could start the most sullen of circle pits swirling.


View more articles about Australian artists
Share Tweet

Kate

You Might Also Like

  • LIVE REVIEWS

    Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

  • features

    The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

  • LIVE REVIEWS

    William Crighton (The Great Club)

Search

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Recent articles

  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay) February 19, 2022
  • The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation February 17, 2022
  • A gentle hidden gem: a visitor’s guide to the NSW far south coast January 8, 2022
  • ‘An inscrutable and open-ended riddle’: the life and art of Jeffrey Smart December 11, 2021
  • Trekking the Great Ocean Walk: ‘Stand with no land mass between your sweaty skin and Antarctica’ December 7, 2021
  • MUSIC
    • record reviews
    • LIVE REVIEWS
    • features
  • ARTS
  • About
  • Travel
  • Teach

My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

Latest posts

  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

    February 19, 2022
  • The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

    February 17, 2022
  • A gentle hidden gem: a visitor’s guide to the NSW far south coast

    January 8, 2022
  • ‘An inscrutable and open-ended riddle’: the life and art of Jeffrey Smart

    December 11, 2021
  • Trekking the Great Ocean Walk: ‘Stand with no land mass between your sweaty skin and Antarctica’

    December 7, 2021

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Search