Live Review: Acolyte, Orsome Welles, Mushroom Giant, Terrestrials

Australia keeps throwing up high quality, proggy, alternative-rock acts and you can add the name Terrestrials to that bulging and burgeoning list. This Melbourne-based four-piece possess a big, open, alive sound and, like virtually every other band of their ilk, they have a very strong grasp on how to inject dynamics, and light and shade, into their darkly melodic sound. They juxtapose walls of thundering double-kick drumming (the drums are overpowering at times during their set) with moments of unsettling ambience and they offset each other beautifully. It's what might be deemed delicate heaviness. Some sweet vocal harmonies, highlighting choruses and other moments would make them truly soar.

Hometown instrumental heroes Mushroom Giant are up next. This band has been around for a decade and a half or so, and this shows in both their following and their ridiculous tightness and confidence as a band. They open with a quiet, brooding intro that sends shivers down spines and you can tell that something major is brewing. When it comes, it is beautiful and the crowd is in instrumental heaven. This band are not really stoner rock, not really post-rock or post-metal, not really psychedelic rock, not truly prog, but rather they combine elements of all of the above and plenty more besides, channelling it all into something that is very much their own. You could say they exist in a genre of one. In fact, their sound is almost orchestral in its layering of lines and textures. They put on a fabulous show, too, the crazy rear-screens only adding visual delight to their commanding musical presence and skill. The Mushroom Giant live experience is a truly memorable one.

It's an eclectic and compelling line-up this night and the ever-entertaining Orsome Welles grace Evelyn Hotel's stage next. This band plays with controlled, calculated abandon and produce a titanic wall of rock that smacks you fair and square between the eyes. They keep it interesting at the same time, however, throwing odd-time grooves and sweet instrumental dexterity into the mix on a regular basis to shake things up. Frontman Michael Vincent Stowers is his usual idiosyncratic self, too, bellowing his lines with full-throated force, hitting the notes like a champion archer hits their target and sipping on a Sangiovese in between tunes. Orsome Welles wind up what was a big year for them in fine style this night.

After a seemingly interminable wait, which only heightens the tension in the still-heaving crowd, headliners Acolyte take the stage with a spellbinding symphonic and then operatic opening. This is a band searching for transcendence and they seem to be finding it. They are developing some real dramatics in their sound and live show, and it is taking them to another level. The huge voice and radiating presence of frontwoman Morgan-Leigh Brown is the visual and aural focal point out front.

Acolyte treat us to some new material tonight and you can see where they are headed: into the stratosphere, combining highly accomplished prog rock with soaring orchestral flourishes (much of which comes from the dextrous, imaginative playing of keysman David Van Pelt) and doing it in their own unique way. The Acolyte live show is becoming a truly cathartic experience.