Album Review

The Shiralee by TheRedSunBand

If you are the type of person who enjoys the grunge music of the 90’s or the psychedelic feeling of the 60’s then TheRedSunBand and their second album The Shiralee is just right for you. The band’s sound is a mixture or classic grunge, mixed perfectly with a psychedelic edge. In other words they play pretty, loud, dark, sad dream-pop.

The Sydney based band consisting of Sarah & Lizzie Kelly and Jasper Fenton
released their debut album Peapod in 2004 to fairly good reviews around Australia. The band’s second album The Shiralee was released on their own label, Enchanted Recordings in 2008. The album is independent of a record label and completely self funded due to two main factors. The first being the band’s tireless promotion of their debut album, and the second was that Sarah was the recipient of the Jessica Michalik songwriters grant. Tragically 16 year old Jessica died at the 2001 Sydney Big Day Out and the grant is given to songwriters in her memory. The album was produced by Dean Dirt (Magic Dirt) and recorded in ten days at Hothouse studio in St Kilda, Melbourne. Tim Whitten (The Clouds, Art of Fighting, Powderfinger, Gersey, Gaslight Radio, the list goes on) mixed the album.

I became obsessed with this band in 2009 when I saw them perform live at Oxford Arts Factory, as soon as they started playing I felt like I was being taken on a dark, dreamy and sometimes painful journey with the singer, Sarah. Their sound, built around multi-layered harmonies laced over often stark, haunting soundscapes, is not only their own unique style but also very rarely misses connecting with the ‘sweet spot’.
The albums highlight is the cover of Smog’s Bathysphere, which puts forward a lot more emotion and the, almost Bjork-like, vocals perfectly compliment the heavy-breathing rhythm and explosive moments. The album’s lyrics fight their way to the top of the louder backdrops, which gives off a great sense of pain and struggle.
Other songs to check out on the album are Like An Arrow, The Eagle and Heartbreaker.
TheRedSunBand is one of my favourite bands and their sound is one you should definitely check out!

-Kleo Andreou-