Live Review: Transience, Breaking Orbit, The Omnific, Formiles

It is officially the last night of winter and in typical Melbourne style the season said, "No, I’m not done with you just yet." It’s cold, it’s wet, but it doesn’t deter the hardy, prog-loving Melbourne rock crowd, as they show up in more than solid numbers to this rather special evening.

A real and pleasant surprise is Geelong three-piece Formiles. These guys love their odd time signatures, especially their threes and sixes. They love their atmospherics, they love their ebb and flow, their rise and fall, their surge and recede. They’re kinda proggy, but not really a prog band. They have somewhat of a vocally oriented post-rock aesthetic, but they’re not really a post-rock act. They do what they do, and you are free to dump whatever label you want on them. The bass walks around all over the place while still keeping a steady groove and bottom end while the guitar floats airily above it. And rising above it all are the raw, pained and impassioned vocals of frontman Jack Forsey. This is a sweet, although too short, opening set.

The crowd has built beautifully throughout the opening set, and the sheer gusto with which they respond to Formiles' show carries over into The Omnific’s set. These boys seem to get better every time they play, watching their development over the past couple of years has been nothing short of amazing. To the uninitiated, they are a three-piece; two bass guitars and a drummer. No six-strings, no vocals - just an onslaught of slap, groove, tricky fingering and fat bottom end, propelled by a highly dexterous and exuberant drummer.

Their early days saw them just a touch on the tentative side on stage, but a bunch of shows since then have seen them come out of themselves. Their sound, their spirit of adventure and their live show are all bigger and bolder than they once were, and their subtle use of sampling has added a very welcome lushness to their sonic palette. They will only get better, too.

Three years is a long time for a band to be completely off the scene, but Sydney’s Breaking Orbit’s set this night proves that they are far from forgotten. And far from rusty from disuse either, as they slip straight back into gear like a hand slips into a tailored glove. From the get-go, it's like they had never even been away. Their set this night is an immensely powerful, percussive and harmonically driven tour de force, with tracks taken from both of their titanic albums. Time Traveller, Orion, When Isis Starts To Cry are all enormous, the only slight disappointment being the absence of Echoes, but that’s just a gripe from one humble music writer.

Even better news is that, according to frontman Matt Quayle, the band is quietly and casually starting to work on some new material. It’s been said a few times recently about bands from this scene that have come back to the fold after lengthy absences, but Breaking Orbit, it is so good to have you back.

Launching their brand new single, Words, Melbourne’s Transience open with a previous single of theirs, Ocean. The sound is huge, the drums in particular enormous. The energy pouring off the stage when this band plays comes at you in waves and is truly infectious. This band has a unique intensity to them, and a fair percentage of that emanates from the big-lunged voice and magnetic presence of frontman Robert Cuzens, although of course all five members play a very strong part. 

The big crowd stays transfixed till the end of the 50-odd-minute set proper plus the encore, before returning, warm of heart and deaf of ear, to the cold Melbourne late-winter evening. Another highly successful evening of progressive Aussie heavy music is done. Bring on Spring.