Time to keep the ball rolling on our countrywide Comeback Specials [QLD here & NSW here] and once again we're heading south, this time to Australia's music loving state Victoria where sooo many bands have either started out, reformed or relocated to Melbourne and it's thriving Live Music scene. Our list was going to feature Mindsnare however they surprise dropped their new album this year and toured again as well as Behind Crimson Eyes who would have been high on the list had they not reformed to open for Alexisonfire and play UNIFY 2017 so out with them, but who else needs to end their break-up/hiatus and emerge from their silent state? Here's our picks for The Top 7 Victoria Bands That Need A Comeback…
#7 - Of Whispers [2009-2012]
The post-hardcore act formed in 2009 and managed to accumulate a following within the Melbourne hardcore scene and managed to release their debut Conquest EP a few years later in 2011. Unfortunately for the band, they departed not long after and all that's left of them is YouTube and Myspace memories...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCHQv9CzGfY&w=640&h=360]
#6 - Pisschrist [2004-2010]
As far as hectic bands with so much energy and aggression go, Pisschrist would have had to have been one of the best to emerge from Melbourne back in the early 2000's. Having a plethora of heavy songs behind them and an eagerly anticipating fanbase wanting more action from them (they regrouped for 2 shows only this year) it's only a matter of time before we'll be swinging from the rafters at one of their shows.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW_dG1Kv_A8&w=640&h=360]
#5 Pro Team [2004-2007, 2011-2012]
These guys were up there alongside Parkway Drive, Wish For Wings, Mourning Tide and other upcoming hardcore bands in the mid-late 2000's and goddamn they were good. At the end of their first stint, they wrapped things up with a hometown show at Sike Your Mind 2007 alongside headliners Miles Away & Carpathian and for those who remember, Deez Nuts' debut show. The band reformed again in 2011 and released their Fault Lines EP but nothing eventuated following on from there. You can still download their fan favourite EP Our Wasteland from Bandcamp if you wanna get all kinds of nostalgic
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tonjd5Z3gKQ&w=640&h=360]
#4 - Her Nightmare [2003-2008]
If you think of some of the heaviest and memorable bands from the early 2000's and you don't recall Her Nightmare, did you really experience some of the best Australian bands we had to offer during that time? Having paved their way into the heavy music circuit after being inspired by the brutal tones of Hatebreed, the band were quickly picked up by fellow bands like I Killed The Prom Queen and Parkway who dragged them across the country where they eventually started pulling their own crowds.
The band released their debut album No Heaven No Hell in 2005 after getting signed to Resist Records and this catapulted them into stardom which lead to the guys scoring opening slots for bands like Comeback Kid, Terror and their idols Hatebreed throughout 2006 and beyond. A few years later the band released follow up album Come Anarchy Come Ruin which they took on the road for an extensive national tour before things came to an end for the five piece. Grab the last album via their Bandcamp.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lSIUuxYvKk&w=640&h=360]
#3 - TISM [1982-1983, 1984-2004, 2010-2011]
What else needs to be said about TISM? The former alt-rockers have been making waves since they first appeared wayyy back in the early 80's and from there caused controversy almost everywhere they went. From court ordered album re-releases, to appearances on the Big Day Out Festival, you can't say these legends faded into oblivion without leaving their mark on the world. They even caused National headlines when apetition in 2015 called for their reunion so they could represent Australia at Eurovision...
Damian Cowell aka Humphrey B. Flaubert most recently crowd funded his solo project Damian Cowell's Disco Machine which he performed a Sold Out with in Melbourne back in Feb 2015, but it just isn't the same as his original entity.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiHdpAVIHgo&w=640&h=360]
#2 - The Red Shore [2004-2011]
This was always going to be a hard one to mention consider the band tragically lost original frontman Damien Morris and their roadie Andy Milner in a car accident back in 2007 just as the band were picking up traction following the release of their Salvaging What's Left EP. The rest of the band continued on relasing their debut album Unconsecrated in 2008 and Lost Verses (Compilation album) in 2009 before founding member and vocalist Jamie Hope departed the band.
A new conception of the band featuring ex-Before The Throne member Chase Butler fronting and the last original member Jason Leombruni on guitar released the band's third and final album The Avarice of Man in 2010 before calling it quits just over a year later. Debate has always sparked up about which era of the band was best with more fans indicating the earlier years were their favourite lineup, but newer fans may beg to differ having witnessed the band tour with the likes of Suffokate, The Acacia Strain, Bring Me The Horizon and more.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNDB0zmFdDM&w=640&h=360]
and the winner is
#1 - Carpathian [2003-2011]
The title for the most recognised and stand out band from Burn City that's no longer active is Carpathian who in 8 short years managed to not only accumulate fans across the globe and play with HUGE named acts like Killswitch Engage and Bleeding Through but they also assisted in paving the way for some of the big heavy Australian acts doing the rounds right now. Australian fans would also remember them playing all shows on the 2007 Taste of Chaos tour, a massive milestone for an upcoming local act.
Michael Crafter is a man who has gone from band to band to success to retirement and one of the bands he fronted during his career was Carpathian. While his time in the band may have been short lived (7 months to be exact), it still remains one of the most action packed and fast paced times the band had in he early years. We reached out to the former frontman to pick his brain about his time in the band and if he regretted leaving after such a brief stint:
Mate it was short and sweet but you managed to do some big things in Carpathian, what's the story behind you joining?
"I had just been kicked out of Prom Queen and Marty [Martin Kirby] called me and was like 'Do you wanna sing for the band?' because he was going to play guitar and I was like well this makes sense and it should be alright. Then we were meant to be going out with Prom Queen so we sat down with their booking agent and cancelled the whole tour just because we wanted to be pricks."
hahaha wow and what do you recall about that time after you joined?
"It was crazy, when I joined it [the band] was doing some good stuff and then all of a sudden our tours started to get really big, we did a couple headline tours and the resist tour and a summer run with Parkway [Drive]. It had been a real short amount of time but at the same time we did a lot... I just remember fuckin' moving to Melbourne and was living at Marty's Mum's house and then I was living at Dave [Birchard] the drummer's Dad's house and we were just going out on tour [doing] anything. And then Nothing To Lose got fuckin' huge."
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djO1K6BDKQM&w=640&h=360]
So for you, was it a situation of getting ousted from one band and for you to keep your foot in the industry, you jumped into another band to stay in?
"I didn't even care at first... and then that fell into my lap and it just so happened I was closer to those dudes in that band than I was [with] Prom Queen at the time. So it was a bunch of dudes in the hardcore scene [that] didn't want to be a metal band, Prom Queen was a bunch of dudes from the hardcore scene and they wanted to be a metal band so it suited me more and that time of being in Carpathian was some of the coolest shows and tours I've ever done."
Having a think back to around that time what was more of a regrettable decision for you, leaving Carpathian or leaving Bury Your Dead?
"Leaving Carpathian because I think it could have been something really big. Like, I think if bands like, not so much Amity because they were always on a path for more commercial success, but the fact that bands like In Hearts Wake and Northlane and all those kinds of bands, they've all done real well and I feel like Carpathian was on that path but their decisions to go away from the heavier side of things and not be a break-down band, I don't know if it so much hurt them but I think they could have done really fuckin' well in Europe because the first tour in Europe was with Parkway so you can't really ask for more; and the band had just gotten off of Parkway supports in Australia so for me looking at it, they could have been huge... and maybe they still are, maybe the band is still fuckin' massive and they could do a tour and 1000 people show up every night, who fuckin' knows these days."
Talking about Parkway Drive and their success, they're doing their Horizons Anniversary Tour next year and with all the nostalgia surrounding that, what are the chances Carpathian could reform for a few shows? Do you speak to the guys?
"I caught up with Dave for coffee when I was in Melbourne. Me and Marty message each other every now and again and with everyone else who knows. If they did a reunion there's no point me doing the reunion because I was only in it for that short period of time and I think Marty was definitely the frontman of the band. But I've said to them for years just do some shows and there's no interest."
"Maybe down the track there will be but right now Dave works for Parkway and takes photos, Marty has a clothing shop in Melbourne and travels to Japan and pretty much turned Japanese, umm I don't even know what the rest of them have done, Josh [Manitta] played on that last CD and he's done a bunch of bands over the years, I think he's still doing hardcore bands but who knows what the rest of them are doing. All the very old members and crew, they've all got families, wives and kids so everyone's grown up I think."
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZhfZ4JaVR4&w=640&h=360]
So it's a situation of leaving what happened in the past behind and the legacy they left behind with it?
"Maybe that's their plan, some bands are better off that way for themselves because some bands come back and have that couple of shows that are sick and go 'let's be a band again' and never recapture that time, because that period of time from 2003 to 2009 was a different world."
"Metalcore became 'the thing', but it is what it is"
You can hear our full chat with Michael Crafter in this week's episode of our Wall of Sound: Up Against The Wall podcast. Stay tuned for it's release soon.
But that’s a wrap for our Victorian edition, don’t forget to let us know who you think we missed and who you want us to give a mention to in our next piece when we begin our journey west through rAdelaide! Until then enjoy some vintage Behind Crimson Eyes before the band finally release some new material later this week
Browny (@brownypaul)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLkRd1LK0Jk&w=853&h=480]
