This One Time, On Bandcamp: Homeless Yellow

Homeless Yellow — Brisbane, Qld

The music of Brissy four-piece Homeless Yellow straddles many lines. They're not roots, nor quite rock or grunge, and definitely not metal, though their groove-laden, attitudinal acoustic jams tangibly draw from all of those influences, among others.

The quartet's frontman, Mike Gemzik, wields a standout voice that echoes the gruff, deep strains of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder (even occasionally straying into Crash Test Dummies territory, in enunciation if not actual tone), while he and fellow guitarist Pauli Hirvonen wrangle power and playfulness alike out of their unplugged six-strings.

That melodic core is more than capably backed up by the rhythm section, bassist Brenden Crilly's bottom end providing the bridge between worlds, dually complementing his fellow axes as well as the technically engaging and fundamentally solid contributions of drummer Chris Morse.

The band have been plugging away for more than a decade now and, as can easily be seen on Melanoma Sunrise — the only of their full-lengths that they've made available on Bandcamp, though their oeuvre also includes 2010's God Verses Saturn — they've developed into a tight, inventive and thoroughly intriguing outfit, capable of writing songs likely to appeal to a broad cross-section of music fans. They cite their influences as being of the likes of Nirvana, Neil Young, Napalm Death and Roy Orbison, and, as disparate as those all sound at first glance, elements of all are audible throughout the album's nine tracks.

Despite the upload dates suggesting otherwise, Melanoma Sunrise (2014) actually came before the decidedly countrified New Western, a fresh single from their yet-to-be-released follow-up album. It's a real joy either way though, and gives Morse in particular ample room to flex his dexterity as a player, filling the soundscape with all manner of delightful tricks and turns throughout. If nothing else, it demonstrates the malleability of their sound, keeping very much in line with their established framework yet different enough to successfully stand on its own.

The band haven't been too active on the live scene of late — they played their first show in a year back in April, and it seems to have been a little bit quiet since — but hopefully they're still working away at getting that unreleased album out there. In the interim, keep yourself busy with their previous recordings and give 'em a peep on Facebook.

Releases

Melanoma Sunrise — LP, 2014 (uploaded Jun 2017)

New Western — Single, April 2017

Hear more tracks on Bandcamp.

Are you an independent solo artist or band? Got a Bandcamp page (y'know, because the title really doesn't work without it)?

Let us know if you want us to listen to your tunes, and you might get featured in a future edition of This One Time, On Bandcamp!