Live Review: Sleepmakeswaves, Caligula's Horse, Aerials

A scattered but welcoming crowd greet local trio Aerials as they open tonight's proceedings with a healthy dose of their Muse-esque alt-rock tunes, underpinned by snappy, technical drums, tight bass and effects-laden guitar lines.

Vocalist Jackson Walkden-Brown is in fine, cocky form tonight as he belts out lyrics and struts intermittently to centre stage, where he engages in a little bit of cheeky showboating atop a small riser behind the fold-backs. No More Nights, from the band's 2013 debut EP Firefights, strikes an early highlight and gives Walkden-Brown ample room to shine, the band far more polished than expected given the fact that this is their first show in nine months or so. The three-piece show off some new material alongside their back catalogue, wrapping up in style with the foot-stomping, hip-shaking grunt of Burn Burn Burn.

Fellow Brisbane outfit Caligula's Horse have ascended the ranks of Australia's prog-rock ladder over the past several years to assume a premiere position among the scene, and their performance tonight only serves to reinforce that placement. The band open with the thunderous A Gift To Afterthought, but only after frontman Jim Grey — sporting 'barista-chic' moustache, a punitive measure inflicted upon him for some unspecified transgression during this tour — walks on-stage twice, clearly not quite impressed with the initial effort put forth by the crowd in welcoming them.

Indeed, Grey's acerbic banter could rub some the wrong way, with a tendency to err on the side of being gratuitously crass, but he more than backs up the attitude by being a magnetic presence both between songs and in performance. He bounces around the stage with unbridled energy, nailing his notes with style and power throughout. In fact, the whole band is in fantastic form tonight, though new guitarist Adrian Goleby and bassist Dave Couper — a flurry of fingers and spot-on harmonies — bear special mention as being particularly impressive. New track The Cannon's Mouth also marks a standout effort in a uniformly outstanding performance that could only be adequately described as a tour de force.

Spoiled as we've already been tonight, the greatest gift has been saved for last. This marks the final show on sleepmakeswaves' tour in support of their transcendent new album, Made Of Breath Only, but the Sydney four-piece show absolutely no signs of fatigue as they hit the stage, greeted by their hugely receptive audience. Opening with the bone-shaking force of to you they are birds, to me they are voices in the forest, the band deliver a ceaselessly high-energy, atmospheric set that offers a true sonic gamut and stands as a display of preternatural musicianship and ambition operating in jaw-dropping, gorgeous synergy that lifts the outing to indescribably evocative heights. The joy that radiates forth from the stage is palpable and contagious, and, by the time the first song is over, the crowd is utterly enthralled.

Although tonight is largely about their newest tracks — the band dip into Made Of Breath Only with a superlative rendition of their recent single Tundra before blitzing through Midnight Sun (after a false start, the only misplaced step of the night), Glacial and To Light And/Then Return — there's plenty to sate longtime fans such as early appearances from Traced In Constellations, from 2014's sophomore album Love Of Cartography, and 2009's we sing the body electric, before they bookend the MOBO material with a string of enthusiastically received favourites, including the expansive glory of The Stars Are Stigmata and the simply luscious Great Northern.

Closing their main set with the technical might of Something Like Avalanches, the band are coaxed back to the stage with a growing call for 'one more song'. Acquiescing to our demands, they treat us to the magnificence of old favourite keep your splendid silent sun before leaving us for real with a cheery wave as the lights come on and friends turn to each other to immediately start gushing about the spectacle to which we just bore witness. It's the kind of performance that deserves not only the assertion that sleepmakeswaves are, without question, the best post-rock band in the country, but arguably one of the finest in the world.