Live Review: I Heart Hiroshima, Yeevs

A very sparse crowd freckled the venue floor to welcome I Heart Hiroshima back after a few years of radio silence.

Whether it's a mark of changing tastes in music or more likely an indication of how dire Sydney's live music scene is becoming is up for debate, but the lack of crowd was water off a duck's back to the trio who successfully smashed out a set that filled the gaps in the room with their gritty, punch-in-the-guts, trademark sound.

Support Yeevs played a neat little set with some impressive melodies for such a young band, although frontman Brad Cork's unique vocals didn't necessarily work on some songs.

I Heart Hiroshima played a really well fleshed-out set, which highlighted a slightly more polished version of their trademark bleak/upbeat sound on tracks like Fifty Three and Difference, from their new EP Spillin' The Light. Glow, another track off their latest EP, is a cracker of a track that focuses on the strength of the band's dual vocalists Matt Somers and Sullivan Patten, and sounded ace live.

There were also crowd favourites from The Rip including the bittersweet Shakeytown, which managed to get some dancing happening on the floor. It was when I Heart Hiroshima dropped some of their older songs that the mood in the venue really shifted, though. The opening, clanky riff of Captain To Captain sent a new rush of energy through the crowd, Somers' straining vocals filling the venue with a great raw excitement.

The older fans in the crowd were transported back to ten years ago on London In Love and closer Neutron Popsong, and suddenly you could feel yourself in one of those dingy rooms that I Heart Hiroshima used to play, smashed against five different, sweaty people, bouncing up and down to the band as Patten smashed the hell out of the drums and the boys shredded their guitars. The final chords of Neutron Popsong left everyone in this energetic haze, excited for more of the same and wanting the band to keep playing. A talented trio. It's good to have them back.