Before I headed along to The Standard on Thursday night to see New Zealand’s Die! Die! Die!, who we have featured many times over the years on the AU review, it occurred to me that I’d never before witnessed the explosive trio. For shame, I told myself… for shame. So it was with little hesitation that I finally made up for lost time and caught up with the boys in their first Sydney gig in quite a while – with a new bassist to boot (Michael Logie, who I recently caught during his tour with Opossum).
It’s been two years since the band unleashed the fantastic Form onto the world, and they had returned to Australia this time around with a new album to promote, Harmony. Much as the title suggests, this is a band who are in a phase of their careers where they have more vision, drive and understanding of the craft than ever before. The shows are more tightly constructed and the overall impression I get is nothing but positive. For some fans of the band, I’m sure the memories of their far more frenetic shows ‘back in the day’ are fond ones, but these fans have grown up with the band and no doubt appreciate the maturing of their craft. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop them from jumping around in front of the stage. The music of Die! Die! Die! will have that effect on just about anyone.
“Blinding” off of 2008’s Promises, Promises opened up the set, and was followed by their latest single “Oblivious Oblivion” off of Harmony. Their third track was an epic, layered, solid tune that the band self described as a ballad. With their eyes on each other from start to finish, the band worked with vigour and passion to create an impressive sounding set – they were more focused on getting it right than jumping around and being crazy – they left that to us. “Harmony” was another highlight of the evening, showing that this is a band who are getting finer with age*. I highly recommend checking them out as they continue touring around Australia.
*One band they draw comparisons to are …Trail of Dead, who famously changed their direction – which Pitchfork hated, and therefore everyone else thought they were supposed to hate it too. It’s worth mentioning that Die! Die! Die!, in my opinion, are making records now that are on par with …ToD at their critical best, e.g. Madonna… but this is an opinion from someone who actually got into ToD when World’s Apart came out, so you would probably just ignore my opinion totally. Well, if you let Pitchfork make your musical decisions anyway.
