The Smallest Room
  • Menu

    Music
    Arts
    About
    Travel
    Teach

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

Miazma – North

A listing from my quarterly Guardian column 'Music You Missed', April 2016


Miazma are a metal band from Alice Springs who’ve twice won the “heavy” category in the Northern Territory Song of the Year award. Capitalising on the tyranny of distance, Miazma say the desolation of Alice Springs has given them “a wasteland sense of identity” – a claim so metal it comes with devil horns already half-sprouted.

Their collision of thrash, technical and death metal is not new (think Gojira) but metal’s funny like that – in the right hands, there’s a lot to love in its showy cliches, especially in songs as entertainingly episodic as The Defected Era. The band’s vocals duel between death growls (that you can actually understand) and hoarse screeches. Add some blast beats, tempo changes, chugging guitars and an ambient lull or two and you’ve got metal to drive to. Which is lucky, given Miazma have clocked 30,000km touring thus far and say they’ll drive all night to play one show to a crowd of rabid headbangers.

Feature track: North


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

  • A yarn with YIRRAMBOI Blak Critic Bryan Andy January 28, 2023
  • Dua Lipa – Qudos Bank Arena November 8, 2022
  • The Tasman, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Hobart September 6, 2022
  • Zen in the Arabian desert June 6, 2022
  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay) February 19, 2022
  • 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

  • A yarn with YIRRAMBOI Blak Critic Bryan Andy

    January 28, 2023
  • Dua Lipa – Qudos Bank Arena

    November 8, 2022
  • The Tasman, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Hobart

    September 6, 2022
  • Zen in the Arabian desert

    June 6, 2022
  • Floors of Heaven underwater concert (Woolloomooloo Bay)

    February 19, 2022

Twitter

Tweets by @smallestroom

Search