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Back in December, I took a trip to the land down under. I loved almost everything about Australia—the intensely hot weather, the accent, the creative cursing inserted into casual conversation. The only downside was the beer being twice as expensive. I spent most of my time in Melbourne, a city with wide-ranging arts scene. In many ways, it was like the Montreal of Australia. During my time in Melbourne, I was able to check out a handful of shows, where I fell in love with Australian’s heavy scene. Here are my picks of the best Australian metal bands that I saw live.

King Parrot

Prior to my trip, I was obsessed with King Parrot for their unique grind of black and thrash metal, and for their outrageous sense of humour. In many ways, they’re the ambassadors of Australian metal. Despite living on the other side of the planet, they’ve frequently toured in North America, even recording an album with Phil Anselmo. I’ve seen them twice before in Montreal and Toronto, but I was usually the only one at the front singing along. So it was a completely different experience being able to see them in the hometown, in a packed venue with hundreds of fans singing along. They mostly played songs from their third album Ugly Produce, which they had released a month before, but at one point, they broke out a cover of AC/DC in honour of the late Malcom Young. It was truly a magical night and I still won’t shut up about it.

Pagan

Opening up for King Parrot, was a darkened hardcore band called Pagan. I hadn’t listened to them before, but I was completely taken by surprise. I was in awe of the stage presence of their singer Nikola Elizabeth, who couldn’t stand still for a second and resorted to jumping and kicking the air. Her energy was infectious, not to mention she had a gnarly growl. I suspect that she and her other bandmates have some Italian blood. Perhaps I got the impression from their song “Luigi Cherubini.”

Religious Observance

The next day, I attended an all-day festival featuring a wide variety of sludge, doom and psych bands. I was intrigued by bands with names like Black Jesus and Maggot Bath, but the highlight was seeing Religious Observance. The bassist, Campbell Stephens, organized the festival in honour of the first successful year of his art collective UMAC. His six-member strong band played long doomy songs, without being afraid to delve into the realm of the bizarre. One member was in charge on handling the sample and noise pedals, and somehow manipulated the sound by waving around a knife. Their album Boiling Excrement should give enough indication of their mental state.

Cosmic Kahuna

I was lucky to be staying on such a trendy street, because two blocks away from the sludge festival was another festival called Loudmouth. The bands playing at Loudmouth were more on the melodic punk side, with Guttermouth headlining. But the band that really stood out from the rest was a trio of headbangers called Cosmic Kahuna. The struck up a conversation with the bassists (why are bassists always the most approachable ones?) who described his sound has a mix of surf and Aussie-brand skate punk. But after seeing their performance, I’d describe it as surf riffs sped up to thrash metal speeds.

Headlopper

This band was very strange. It was like staring at something incomprehensible, yet being unable to look away. For starters, the frontman wore a Leatherface-esque mask, would scream into a microphone and fumble with noise pedals with one hand and in the other hand, he held a light, shining it in every direction. The light was blindingly bright, so I had to strategically stand behind a taller person to partially block my view of the stage. They didn’t use guitars at all, instead one guy would repeatedly wack a springboard box with a stick, which generated a guitar-like sound. The drummer would tie the noise together, alternating between cool jams and blast beats whilst pig squealing. They recently released their second album in January. Listen if you dare.

Hosted by Luca Caruso-Moro

Stories by Luca Caruso-Moro

Produced by Luca Caruso-Moro

It's March, and here at CJLO that can only mean one thing... it's Metal March.

What is Metal March, you ask? Well, we at CJLO play a lot of metal. By "a lot" I don't mean "we have a 3 hour show at 1AM on Saturday." No, I mean we have 8 hours of strictly metal shows and 7 additional hours of loud programming a week. Our top 30 charts every week usually consists of a minimum of 20% metal or loud bands. So yeah, we play a lot of metal.

But even though we play a lot of metal, we noticed that metal is still on the back burner, so 2 years ago we decided to bring it to the forefront and celebrate it, and since we're big fans of illiteration, we decided to do it in March. Thus Metal March was born.

So what are we doing this year? Well, for starters we're bringing you concerts. Come out to Casa de Popolo for the 4 year anniversary of Gutser on March 16th featuring Kato, Venomenon, and Jesus Horse that we're puttin on in conjunction with Grimey MTL. Tickets are 5 bucks in advance and 7 at the door. For more info, check here.

Grimey punk not your bag, well the same night at Brasserie Beaubien check out Spectral Wound along with Eyes of Night, Blood Sacrifice, and Profane Order for all your black metal needs. Tickets are a suggested 5 - 10 dollars. More info here.

Speaking of shows, we want you to go out to more of them. We have passes to tons of shows including Heavy Montreal. Keep checking in to our social media and listening in to shows to see how and when you can score some tickets for free dollars. 

Theater goer? Then look for a screening of The Rise of LA Thrash on the 25th of March at Concordia University's De Seve theater. The doc is full of interviews from members of bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Testament and Suicidal Tendencies to name a few. Look out on our Facebook for an event page going up soon, but in the meantime, here's a link to a trailer to get you excited.

We have another compilation coming at you full of loud bands that have played in our recording studio, affectionately called The Oven. Stay tuned to our Bandcamp and all of our social media. To get a preview of what you might be looking at, feel free to check out and download the last one we did here. You don't have to give us money for it, but if you did it would be rad. Not saying... just saying...

And if you're a total shut in, don't worry, we have you covered too, with CJLO shows "darkening" up with special programming. Tune in to your favorite shows as they highlight metal, punk, drone, or whatever other loud stuff they like but can't quite fit into their normal shows. They'll also have book giveaways, including the Bruce Dickinson and Sebastian Bach autobiographies, so you can further justify your hermit lifestyle. And speaking of reading, we'll also be doing articles on our website highlighting metal topics, so check in every Monday for a special "Metal Monday article. 

So tune in to get your dose of metal all month long and make sure to like and follow the CJLO Facebook and Twitter so you can keep up to date on all the shenanigans. Oh, and if you hear something you like, why not go and vote CJLO for your favorite radio station at Cult MTLs "Best of Montreal", which you can do at this link: http://cultmontreal.com/votebestofmtl-2/

All of this from the station reminding you to always keep it loud: CJLO.

It seems to be my thing to go to concerts of bands that I’ve never heard of before. This has been my third time taking part in this tradition and by far it has been the best one. Going into this, I was really expecting lo-fi, chill indie vibe-y music that the crowd would sway back and forth too. I wasn’t wrong, but I was definitely missing a significant part of the concert.

Girl Ray was the first act, blowing up with strong beats and soaring melodies that made my heart melt. And, to my surprise, the millennial Mile-End hipster crowd was actually dancing. Girl Ray is a three-piece band from North London, creating music about teenage angst and young love, reflecting in their popular single “Stupid Things”, all about losing yourself in a crush. Self-identifying as a ‘Girl Power Trio’ or ‘Estrogen Rock’, my riot grrl loving self totally fell head over heels for this band, especially when lead singer/guitarist Poppy Hankin and bassist Sophie Moss danced in half circles to the beat of the song.

As soon as Girl Ray’s epic guitar riffs ended, the crowd size tripled and pushed towards the stage. There was an electric buzz around the venue as we eagerly watched the empty stage. The members of Porches quitely crawled on stage, nobody really noticed them until they started playing. Just after their first song, lead singer Aaron Maine declared that his t-shirt, in fact, was a perfect black t-shirt, spreading his arms wide and thanking the audience. During the next song break, he stated that no, it’s not about the t-shirt, it was about us, and the band and the music. The way Aaron Maine spoke to us, the audience, felt so informal and friendly, like we were his friends, lounging on his couch and hanging out.

Most of the songs Porches played had a significant portion of chaotic sound, usually at the very beginning or end, that would either drop into or out of the regular beat, something that really differentiates Porches from other indie rock bands. During one of the slower songs, I specifically remember thinking, “These melodies are like a soft blanket, floating down and covering me”, as if the sound was all-encompassing and heavy; I could feel moving through the air and weighing down my body.

Porches is one of those bands that is reminiscent of the idealistic teenage house party, with colored lights and smoky rooms and dancing and plush couches, similar to Troye Sivan’s music video for "YOUTH". The bright stage lights, smoke machines and throbbing crowd really reflected that as well; when I closed my eyes I could feel the shag carpet under my feet in the imaginary house party that me and the entire audience were attending.

Porches closed out with their 2013 song “Headsgiving”, focusing on a relationship and wavering mental states. The lyric “She was just 17” really stuck out to me, for this concert was on the eve of my seventeenth birthday and I felt like if I didn’t wholly relish and soak in my adolescence then I would forever regret it. But both Girl Ray and Porches reminded me that I am nowhere near the end of my youth.