Openside - EP Review: Push Back
Admittedly, home grown pop-rock has never been a
particularly easy sell in New Zealand, but when Openside started turning heads
with last year’s single Worth It the
group began a rather rapid ascent, opening for various international acts
including Twenty One Pilots and Melanie Martinez, selling out their own secret
headline show and culminating in the recent release of their debut EP Push Back.
The collection opens up with the hook-laden All I Really Want – catchy as all hell, the song initially comes off as the kind of upbeat, self-help anthem you might put on a mix-tape for your best friend who was recently dumped. Aspects of the lyrics seem to flit between points in a relationship and striving to maintain your sense of self, whilst some scathing millennial rhetoric comes forth in the line “What’s your problem with my generation? soft, indulgent, passive, lazy”.
The EP’s first single Branches follows on, keeping the momentum up with an obligatory pop-rock “da da da da da da da da” refrain. The song comprises some solid mixing - the drums especially, are super tight and the overlaid tambourine is a slick addition.
Good Boys starts more middling in tempo before moving through a pretty standard pop structure. The percussion sample on this track felt a little over-used and at odds with the general feel, but still a solid piece altogether.
If “upbeat melancholy” is a thing Down The Drain definitely fit the bill, the contrast of the track and the frustrated, semi-nostalgia of the lyrics is a refreshing change of pace before the synth breaks and cool introspection of Letting It Out steals attention.
Closing out with the title-named Push Back, the collection is a slickly produced taste whetter, but by no means a summation.
About Openside
After spending the winter touring New Zealand to play to all ages crowds and having supported everyone from Twenty One Pilots and Fall Out Boy to Ellie Goulding and Panic! At The Disco, the group unleashed a three-track EP in 2018, Episode One: Character Flaws accompanied by its very own comic book and launched at Auckand’s Armageddon comic culture expo in October.
Capturing all the energy of their live performances, assured songwriting and production, the first single, Character Flaws is a self-described ‘anthem for the insecure’ that punches straight from the heart, reinforcing the connection the band are making with young audiences through their empowering messages, led by the group’s gender non binary vocalist Possum Plows.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Openside
Releases
Other Reviews By camy3rs
Myele Manzanza - Album Review: OnePointOne (Live At The Blue Whale)
20 Nov 2016 // by camy3rs
There are very few percussionists I can think of that would be able to pull off a live recorded album that falls even into the same league as OnePointOne (Live At The Blue Whale). From the opening bars of A Love Eclectic and onward throughout, the whole collection draws on many contrasting genres, cultures and aural motifs that somehow harmoniously flow out of and into each other.
Read More...
Gig Review: Broods @ Vector Arena 15/07/2016
02 Aug 2016 // by camy3rs
It’s a wee bit of a sad state how seldom a full line-up of Kiwi acts take the stage at Vector Arena, but hopefully after the success of Broods’ Conscious tour, we can see the wheels begin to turn a little more in favour of New Zealand bands. The night opened up with Blenheim-based newcomers, October.
Read More...
Broods - Album Review: Conscious
12 Jul 2016 // by camy3rs
With the follow up to their 2014 debut album Evergreen, Broods are back again with another collection of the moody, atmospheric, dance-pop that gained them their notoriety. Conscious is a straight up beast of an album.
Read More...
Kaushun - Album Review: Tonight
25 Jun 2016 // by camy3rs
Aside from having one of those names that makes fans wary of mispronounciation, Kaushun (pronounced as ‘Caution’), is a electronic music producer based in Auckland, but originally from Leeds in the United Kingdom. Tonight is the producers second album and a decent mix of run-of-the-mill dance/club beats, interesting electronica soundscapes and some high tempo pieces that wouldn’t go amiss on the soundtrack to a futuristic David Fincher film.
Read More...
Gig Review: Avalanche City @ The Powerstation 03/06/16
21 Jun 2016 // by camy3rs
Dave Baxter and ilk have become a rather large part of the quilt of Kiwi music – encompassing all of the personality traits that Kiwis seem to love in their icons, modest about his skill, understated in the news, seemingly soft spoken and dedicated to his practice. Avalanche City itself is a bit of a pop wonder - the roots in folk and country that set the band a part from other pop acts should (at least, to Kiwi audiences) be the proverbial bullet in the heart, and yet at every point they defy the odds.
Read More...
Ladyhawke - Album Review: Wild Things
05 Jun 2016 // by camy3rs
Pip Brown is the kind of musical artist I forever wish that the world had more of, - intuitive, intentional and innovative. Everytime a new Ladyhawke album is released, the incremental advances towards an even more polished, cohesive and genre defying sound are obvious.
Read More...
Gig Review: Drax Project @ Neck Of The Woods, Auckland - 13/05/16
04 Jun 2016 // by camy3rs
Roughly three years ago, I remember walking down Courtenay Place in Wellington and stumbling across a three-piece jazz ensemble playing top 40 pop and RnB covers outside of the Reading Cinema. I’ll tell you now, you have not heard Katy Perry until you’ve heard these guys play Hot ‘n Cold with a saxophone covering the entire lyrical line.
Read More...
Album Review: Zen Mantra
25 May 2016 // by camy3rs
Opening with the tumultuous, twangy guitar refrain on Will Disappear, Zen Mantra’s self-titled album is a brilliant, collective cross-section of reedy, jangling guitar dispersed with sporadic synth. As a mainstayer of the Christchurch music scene and a member of currently touring local group Yumi Zouma, Sam Perry curates a pretty formidable reputation, so expectations for this collection were set pretty high.
Read More...
Most Viewed Artists
Latest Galleries
NZ Top 10 Singles
- APT.
ROSÉ And Bruno Mars - DIE WITH A SMILE
Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars - BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Billie Eilish - TASTE
Sabrina Carpenter - I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
Gracie Abrams - ESPRESSO
Sabrina Carpenter - SAILOR SONG
Gigi Perez - LOSE CONTROL
Teddy Swims - A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
Shaboozey - GOOD LUCK, BABE!
Chappell Roan
More Content on muzic.net.nz
Google Site Search
100% New Zealand Music
All content on this website is copyright to muzic.net.nz and other respective rights holders. Redistribution of any material presented here without permission is prohibited.
Report A Problem
