Live Review: The Preatures, Chela, The Jones Rival

The Jones Rival thumped out some psychedelic grunge tunes with attitude as the Oxford Art Factory filled up. Hefty loads of bass fuzz and thumping drums mixed with badarse rock'n'roll hooks create heavy tracks you can dance to. Adam McTaggart's raspy apathetic vocals, added to their energetic performances, puts JR up with bands like Violent Soho or Splashh as an elite part of the rocking and resurging Australian grunge collective.

Sydney diva Chela busted out 40 minutes of boppy synth pop tunes as Oxford Art reached capacity. Like a young Cyndi Lauper, Chela is a quirky disco starlet drenched in confidence. With an individual style and upbeat disco tracks like Full Moon and Guts, Chela thoroughly entertained. It was a performance as sexy and as colourful as the freshly dropped video clip to Romanticise, the track she closed with and highlight of the set.

It was a reunion of sorts for The Preatures, Isabella Manfredi proclaimed she felt like the Sydney quintet was raised at the Oxford Art Factory. An ecstatic crowd bopped and jived as opener Manic Baby immediately lifted crowd energy. With its walking bass line and stuttering guitar the track is a sweet slice of '70s blues-rock. Manfredi's soft rock vocals sparkled, and when she took on keyboard and backup vocal duties Gideon Bensen held the tracks together. Bensen's deeper rock vocals were solid and he didn't miss a note on rhythm guitar. When the two singers combined for melodies the results were blissful. Genre-hopping from sombre '50s country rock with Pale Rider to more upbeat country blues rock songs like Take A Card, Young Brave Me has a '70s soul feel, making for an enjoyably diverse set. Is This How You Feel? obviously brought the house down. The award-winning track got the crowd so excited they demanded an encore, The Preatures obliging and busting out three more tunes.

With their genre-hopping, decade-swapping, unflinchingly optimistic glossy pop tunes, it's no wonder The Preatures have generated so much hype. This is a band on the way up.