Live Review: The Jezabels, Ali Barter

Melburnian Ali Barter's cheerful banter and breezy indie-pop kicks off our evening at the packed-out Enmore Theatre. After two years in the studio and off the stage, The Jezabels' hometown of Sydney is stop number two on their national tour celebrating the band's 2016 release, Synthia. It's also attempt number two. The band had to postpone this tour.

Vocalist Hayley Mary works the mic and the crowd with a rockstar's bravado. Onstage she brings head-bangs, slow hip grinds, squared shoulders and swagger. Her presence delivers 2016's Smile with particular potency ("Don't tell me to smile/I'll take you down") and fuels the band's big-arena drums and Mary's own raw, power-charged, stadium-sized voice. Her rockstar aura doesn't stop there: she jumps in the crowd for the band's 2011 breakout single Hurt Me and projects straight up into the Enmore's arched ceiling as she is passed around in a perfect plank (cue camera-phone constellation).

Once back on stage, beaming, she adds, "I like touching, in a consensual way — consent is cool." It's one of several off-script, chatty moments: when they return for an encore, Mary apologises for the superficiality of the ritual: "It's on the setlist and everything."

The evening's high points are definitely with their older material. These older tracks stand out for their clarity and tightness. For 2011's Easy To Love, Mary leans into the vocals and the crowd follows, dancing in near-perfect sync with her own body. Later, Mary's voice effortlessly rides high-pitched slides with unremitting intensity on 2010's Mace Spray. But the newer songs tend to get a bit lost in the band's wall of sound. Synthia's intricate soundscapes and more complicated rhythms need more time on stage, but they will no doubt get there eventually.