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Hunting Grounds

Hunting Grounds Radio

General Info

  • Genre: Garage / Punk

    Location Ballarat, Victoria, Au

    Profile Views: 12191

    Last Login: 1/18/2012

    Member Since 2/13/2011

    Website This Is It

    Type of Label Indie

  • Bio

    Hunting Grounds are going to fuck your sister, and kill your brother. That’s right; Ballarat’s bratty breakout sons are coming for you. And when they get you you’re going to feel it in your bones. But don’t let Hunting Grounds’ youthful, hyperactive posturing distract you from the indisputable truth that this is one special troupe of boys. The sound is frenetic, all weighty keys and thumping beats. The just-abrasive-enough alternating vocals of yelping Lachlan Morrish and commanding Michael Belsar are the perfect combination of reckless imagination. Forceful guitars are given momentum by the persistent, frantic rhythms courtesy of Daniel Marie and John Crawford. As for those melodies that have you bashing your face into marble countertops in vain attempts to evacuate them from your brain? Thank the man on keys Galen Strachan and the untamable Tim Street on guitar for those. For want of just one word to describe Hunting Grounds, let’s call it garage-disco- funk-punk on the grandest, sexiest, most insane scale. To say the least.

  • Members

    DANIEL MARIE - DRUMS, GALEN STRACHAN - KEYS/VOCALS, JOHNATHON CRAWFORD - BASS,LACHLAN MORRISH - VOCALS/GUITAR, MICHAEL BELSAR - VOCALS/GUITAR TIM STREET - GUITAR

  • Influences

    Bands we tour with, play one off shows with and go to see live. ..

  • Sounds Like

Contact Management

Rae Harvey - Crucial Music info@crucialmusic.com.au
WE ARE:

DANIEL MARIE – DRUMS

GALEN STRACHAN - KEYS/VOCALS

JOHNATHON CRAWFORD - BASS

LACHLAN MORRISH - VOCALS/GUITAR

MICHAEL BELSAR - VOCALS/GUITAR

TIM STREET - GUITAR

REVIEWS:

HOWL EP - WHO THE HELL REVIEW

Howl, you animated bunch of little twerps, you smug teenage dirtbags with your corresponding assymetrical haircuts and your sharp monochromatic attire; thank you for compelling the bulk of the population of twenty-something musos to shirk back to their factory day jobs screwing lids on toothpaste tubes. What is wrong with you? Kids your age should be spitting in burgers. Not winning national radio band competitions or sharing stages and stealing riders from the Scare, British India and Grafton Primary. Or getting a ‘Goon Machine’ tattoo on your foot. Or breaking egos, girls hearts and gym floors for that matter. You may have put your rural hometown in the spotlight lately for reasons other than Sovereign Hill, bogans and boiled lollies, but what makes you think you have the right to slapdash your promising musical finesse up the arses of other pimply compatriots your age who are still fiddling with Chilli Peppers covers? And the new single ‘I Hear It’s Love?’ Fuck. Off.
I can’t stand the way that you roll up gritty, abrasive garage punk, sexually frustrated lyrics and fleeting bursts of blissful harmonies into a colossal joint at your live shows leaving each audience member convulsing around the floor in a feverish fit. I hate that I squealed like a twelve year old when you whipped out a Justin Timberlake cover at your last gig. I hate the way Daniel doesn’t miss a beat in the quake of his volatile drumming. Screw you Tim and Jonathan for thrusting those catchy persistent riffs and danceable basslines in our faces. Why did you even bother roping two charming lead singers, merging gritty shrieks and subtle melodic charms into thwarts of clever dynamo? And for that boy for Galen Strachan? Have some sympathy for the thousands of listeners who’ve had that bloody contagious, unremittent ‘Blackout’ keyboard jam of yours lodged in their head for months. Screw your ridiculously infectious new radio friendly single. While the most school leavers will be manning drive ins, knocking up thirteen year olds or watching Skins re-runs this summer, you’ll be having fun basking in the glory of your new found success at the Queenscliff, Stereosonic, Field day, Sandcastle and Apollo Bay Festivals, breathing into the same sweaty mic as the Bloody Beetroots and LCD Soundsystem and being asked by itinerant teenage girls to sign their tits. Howl boys, I hope you’re happy.

HOWL EP - (Rave Magazine Review)

On Jeopardy the other day there was a category called Nominative Determinism, or people whose names fit their occupations. Sure, it’s a little easier to decide what to call your band based on its sound than it is to ensure your newborn’s name is an accurate summary of their future vocational choice (although the parents of sprinter Usain Bolt and Manila’s long-serving Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Sin lucked out, as Alex Trebeck pointed out), but as a name, Howl is dead on the money. Emerging from Ballarat, the most obvious howls from this recklessly high energy six-piece emit from the throats of their two lead singers, Michael Belsar and Lachlan Morrish, in what could be a vocal tribute to Craig Nicholls (think the exciting fervour of Get Free rather than the self-consciousness that pervaded a few later records). But the desperate abandon with which the keys and multiple guitars are pummelled give the entire EP the primitive anguish of a howl. Four songs run one into the next like a frenetic live recording, over and done with in less than nine minutes. It’s the third track Blackout which works best, promoting an organ out front like a decade-old Rocket Science track, and aping The Vines’ lead/repeated backing vocal pattern too, come to think of it. Their influences might still be at the forefront, but Howl have started like a band whose passion and knack for an irresistible beat outweigh their derivative tendencies.

Comments

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  • THE CONFEDERACY

    Hey, you guys got into the semi finals of osc. Well done.

    10 months ago

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