SENSORY OVERLOAD - Tom’s Best Of 2024
Sense Music Media | Tuesday 31st December 2024
Words by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment
Banner Photos by: Charlyn Cameron
One Man, Forty Gigs, No Mercy!
2024 was, without question, the biggest year of my life when it comes to live music. After 40 gigs and god-knows-how-many interviews, it wasn’t easy picking the highlights, but it was a hell of a lot of fun, so let’s do it!
BEST LIVE GIG MOMENTS
10. EMMURE – You Asked For It – Eaton’s Hill Hotel
Lurching riffs, caustic vocals and one of the roughest pits I’ve been in in years, EMMURE’s set at CVLTFEST was not for the faint of heart. Metalcore’s answer to LIMP BIZKIT.
9. ALPHA WOLF – Fortitude Valley Music Hall
After their performance helming CVLTFEST, there was no way I was missing ALPHA WOLF’s headlining set at the Fortitude Valley Music Hall, and it was stunning. The singer went so hard he was throwing up from heat behind the drum kit, and the guitarist told us off for making him swear in front of his mother-in-law. Ace.
8. MR BUNGLE – Hell Awaits – Fortitude Valley Music Hall
I should have expected shenanigans from Mike Patton, but when MR BUNGLE kicked off the SLAYER classic Hell Awaits in Brisbane – with Dave Lombardo on the kit, no less – you couldn’t help get swept up in the insanity. The intro built and built, the pit was going mental, and just when it was time for the first verse, they pivoted into … Summer Breeze by SEALS & CROFTS. I haven’t been musically blue-balled like that before. Well done, you bastards.
7. OCEAN GROVE – Fly Away – The Triffid
It’s a good feeling to see a band you love and know that they’re in their prime. Having reinvented themselves into a nu metal behemoth, OCEAN GROVE set The Triffid on fire with this massive banger that sounds like it was ripped straight from 2001.
6. BOTCH – Hutton’s Great Heat Engine – The Triffid
The Brisbane crowd was a tad sleepy, but that didn’t stop mathcore pioneers BOTCH from absolutely sending it during their first (and last) Australian shows in twenty years. We may never get new music from them, but at least we’ll always have this!
5. COAL CHAMBER – Rowboat – Fortitude Valley Music Hall
What’s better than a breakdown? How about a song where the entire thing is a breakdown? COAL CHAMBER blew MUDVAYNE off the stage during their 2023 co-headlining tour, and the set highlight was their absolutely pulverising FLOOD cover that threatened to destroy the Fortitude Valley Music Hall. Ace.
4. KORN – Good God – Good Things
It seems quaint now, but there was a time when I was a kid when Good God was the angriest song I have ever heard. I taped it off Triple J and wore it out listening to it as a kid, so when they kicked this off in Brisbane during my first ever KORN show, I lost my goddamn mind. A perfect note to end my year of gigging on!
3. PANTERA – Suicide Note Pt. II – Knotfest
Forced to rally after a disastrous start that saw them playing A New Level to a crowd that couldn’t hear them, PANTERA’s first Australian tour in over two decades went into overdrive with this savage cut from their angriest album, The Great Southern Trendkill. “Chaos” doesn’t begin to describe it.
2. FEAR FACTORY - Linchpin – Eaton’s Hill Hotel
I already had tears in my eyes finally seeing FEAR FACTORY in the flesh, but when Milo bellowed “EVERYBODY FUCKING BOUNCE” and the riff for Linchpin kicked in, I found myself wondering, “Is this what cocaine feels like?” An absolutely exhilarating set.
1. GOJIRA – Paris Olympics
Was it even live? Who gives a fuck? Performing metal in the pouring rain, 100 feet in the air, on the side of the Paris Conciergerie, for an audience of more than 28 million people worldwide, GOJIRA’s performance of French Revolution song Ah! Ça Ira with opera singer Marina Viotti went down in history as the biggest metal performance ever. Stunning doesn’t begin to describe it.
TOP TEN TRACKS
10. WEREWOLVES – Die For Us
Equal parts brutal and hilarious, Die For Us starts as it means to go on with a sampled threat of ultra-violence before telling us all to get fucked and bashing us with death metal riffs. Awesome.
9. CHIMERS – Glossary
This one snuck up on me. A husband-and-wife duo from Wollongong, Padraic’s crooning vocals unfurl over Binx’ hammering drums in a way that is absolutely intoxicating. Their Brisbane instore appearance was a beautiful (if sweaty) affair, and this was the clear highlight.
8. OCEAN GROVE – Fly Away
Leaving metalcore behind to take flight as a nu metal revival machine, Fly Away’s bouncing riffs and soaring choruses are so 2001 they sound like they should be cranking on a CD/tape deck combo.
7. XS FOR EYES – Infinite Blackouts
Shuddering, glitching horror from FIVE STAR PRISON CELL sticksman Marc Whitworth, the album In Horrid Waves opened on a gloriously horrible note with this little ditty, sounding like THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN having a fever dream of being chased down a hallway by a man with a knife.
6. BOB VYLAN – GYAG
A scorching tale of the lure of crime on the poverty line, GYAG (Get Yourself A Gun) showcases both the dextrous wordsmithing and percussive prowess of BOB VYLAN, and erupts into a giant singalong chorus that is going to absolutely crush when they tour Australia in 2025 with AMYL & THE SNIFFERS.
5. BAD NERVES – Antidote
Irresistibly hyperactive punk rock that has been the opening track of my cardio playlist for the better part of this year. Faster. Faster. FASTER.
4. NORTHLANE – Afterimage (Feat. Ian Kenny from KARNIVOOL)
Plunging subterranean pound with a chorus so good I’m forced to temporarily suspend my grudge against KARNIVOOL’s Ian Kenny (he was once slightly impatient on the phone with me almost twenty years ago. It’s healthy to hold a grudge for that long. Right? RIGHT?)
3. FELICITY JAYNE – Forty Six & 2
TOOL seems like a risky band to cover, but FELICITY JAYNE manages to pay tribute to the original while making it her own, trading heavy prog for haunting keys. Spellbinding.
2. BLACK RHENO – Snake Will Rattle
Groove metal three-piece BLACK RHENO swooped in towards the end of the year with this absolute rager, featuring a hilariously lo-fi music video and an earworm chorus that’ll make you want to race dirt bikes. Vroom vroom!
1. PEARLESCENT – Angels
An achingly beautiful and vulnerable track from Brisbane photographer Dayna West, Angels comes whispering to us through a gramophone-style crackling, and it is so beautifully fragile I feel like I have to sit perfectly still when I listen to it, lest I damage it in some way. A stunning achievement.
BEST ALBUM
RUNNER-UP
XS FOR EYES - In Horrid Waves
In Horrid Waves is a twitching, convulsing and thoroughly hostile piece of work. The less I say about it, the better. Just trust me.
WINNER
BOB VYLAN - Humble As The Sun
“The worst days of our lives will provide great entertainment.” There was no getting away from this. Like Australia’s REGURGITATOR, you have absolutely no idea what you’re in for when you press play on a new BOB VYLAN record, and as the year drew to a close, I realised that nothing had come close to the quality of songwriting and sheer replay-ability of Humble As The Sun. Dynamic, polished and bristling with anger, it’s a brutal but empowering snapshot of life as an underdog in working class Britain. Do not miss them when they tour next year.
The Mr. Rogers Award For Nicest Person
Neville Pearce – SNAKE MOUNTAIN / EVERBLACK MEDIA
Music can be a bitchy industry. Whether you are in the crowd, performing on the stage, promoting, or part of the media, gossip and drama are everywhere. It takes a special kind of bloke to rise above all that muck, and Neville is that kind of bloke. Whether he is swinging a mic onstage as the frontman of SNAKE MOUNTAIN or slinging questions at bands through his work with EVERBLACK MEDIA, Neville has an energy and strength of character that is hard to find. A class act.
BEST INTERVIEW
RUNNER-UP
Glenn Benton - DEICIDE
When the Zoom call flickered to life to reveal DEICIDE frontman Glenn Benton ripping bongs in his bathroom, I knew we were in for an interesting conversation. A controversial chat that also marked the end of the ill-fated censor horn (but not after almost giving myself carpal tunnel from trying to censor this interview), this was definitely memorable!
WINNER
Devin Townsend
Is it weird that my favourite interview of the year was the only one I didn’t write the questions for? After a fantastic chat with him in 2023, I had no idea where I wanted to go with my next conversation with musical mastermind Devin Townsend, so I turned to a FB fan site and got the fans to submit questions. The result was the hardest I have laughed in an interview all year. Well played, everyone.
