Live Review: Zeahorse, Miners, Den

Sydney's Zeahorse made an impressive racket at the Factory Floor on Friday, launching their new album, Torana Dreamin, a thick slab of heavy '90s riffing, taking aim at Australia's seething, burning suburbs. The small crowd were frothing, forming circles and thrashing the week's ills out of their system with impressive spirit.

Wollongong outfit Miners gave us a nice set, bringing their best impressions of Sonic Youth with them. It was a good effort, even if it only offered a glimpse of their full potential. They wield distortion quite well, and made the space feel bigger.

Den were now up, once again reminding us that post-punk still has the power to shake us. Their stark, haunting atmosphere loses a little in translation from pressing to stage, and the hypnotic, swirling maelstrom they invoke on record morphed into something more chaotic and hard to grab. While being less than stellar, it was still bracing and unnerving, like all good post-punk.

Zeahorse are far more straightforward. Throaty and pushy vocals, downtuned guitars and a lumbering kick-snare combo were in full effect; the muscular magnificence of grunge was given vibrant life by the quartet. New album opener Torana sounded solid, but it was their debut album Pools that got us there. Career sounded devastating, each sinister riff given room and heft. Titular track Pool was another winner. It felt like something made out of stone, a rock golem roaring around the stage. Churning distortion and a simple clockwork bass line combined to great effect.

Zeahorse's methods and end product are humble, but they're also impervious to intellectual analysis. In short: this review means nothing in the face of Zeahorse at full volume. Stop reading and start listening.