Live Review: Teeth & Tongue, Pearls, The Ocean Party

Teeth & Tongue, along with a handful of other lucky Melbourne bands, have been granted the chance to perform at Estonian House, in deep West Brunswick. Each artist gets to collaborate with an artist to help fill the space.

Openers are The Ocean Party and Pearls. The house comes down for Pearls for hit Big Shot and Pretend You're Mine also gets an extended cheer. Ellice Blakeney on drums and back-up vocals is pretty amazing and she's complemented by some powerful guitar solos by Ryan Caesar. Cassandra Kiely on lead vocals is the epitome of '70s sass and talent and someone beside us says, "The day I rock leather pants like that I'll know I'm winning."

Tonight, Teeth & Tongue's set starts with visuals by Keith Deverell. There's a slow-motion shot of bubble tea being slurped. The visuals are a stoner heaven: slow-motion technicolour shots of thirst-quenching foods or drinks. Teeth & Tongue are fronted by vocal powerhouse Jess Cornelius and she opens, bewitchingly alone on stage under dark blue lights, and garners the attention of the whole room. Her range, strength and interest in various genres definitely shows and her voice stands up to the challenge. She dips into breathy, harrowing slow songs and at times her voice has something operatic about it. Coupling this with the space at Estonian House gives the whole scenario a sense of grandeur and old-world charm.

Then the set moves into older songs like Good Man, backed by the equally strong Jade McInally on vocals and just synths and a tiny sprinkling of guitar. When both McInally and Cornelius let loose and show off the strength and depth of their voices is when the loudest cheers come. Aside from this, they have a fairly good range of chill, dark, breathy vocal tracks with awesome bass coming from Damian Sullivan, but then they've also got some incredibly powerful rock tracks that incorporate their Korg with some solid electric guitar solos.

And, aside from all that, they're modest, which is refreshing. Cornelius finishes with, "Thanks for coming, I don't know where you all came from, but I'm glad you're here," before lapsing into Kokomo by The Beach Boys.