New Music Review #17: ‘Down’ by Eat Your Heart Out

A band called Eat Your Heart Out was unlikely to be a super-chill coastal folk duo. They are not that.

What they are, in fact, is high-octane power-punk that never once lets their foot off the accelerator. What they are… is fucking awesome.

Restraint is not the order of the day. This is pop-punk at its maximalist best, its basest impulses let loose. It’s combustible, rampaging, a Charmander uncaged in a fireworks factory.

Lead singer Caitlyn Henry is a force. Her imposing vocal permeates through the track, unrelenting and only growing in power over the course of the song.

She is backed by pounding, insistent drumming that rockets the song along at a furious pace, allowing the twisting, screeching guitars to twirl into a hurricane of noise and fury.

If you like Stand Atlantic, Tonight Alive or Alex Lahey (or, for you older heads, Killing Heidi), then I guarantee you will like Eat Your Heart Out.

And a few others:

‘Never Forget' by Sampa The Great (feat Chef 187, Tio Nason and Mwanje Tembo): Mere weeks after I ranked the best songs of the year so far, a track comes along and renders that list outdated. No musician working in Australia today is more worthy of the term “Artist” than Sampa The Great. On ‘Never Forget’, we get another reminder of her intelligence, technical virtuosity, and unparalleled ability to bring together diverse voices into a commanding and cohesive statement. A spiritual experience.

'iridescent ghosts’ by Little Green: This song is exactly as evocative, beautiful and haunting as the title suggests it will be. Sounds like The Waifs in the middle of a really excellent Ayahuasca trip.

‘You Make Everything A Little Better’ by BUSINESS: If 2011 can be considered a throwback, then this song is officially a throwback to those halcyon days of Architecture in Helsinki, Ball Park Music and Vampire Weekend. The word ‘sweet’ can sound condescending, but here it is a high compliment. It’s jangly indie pop that makes you feel good.