Cold Harbour
The Esplanade Hotel, Melbourne

Playing high in the running order of a diverse nine band bill tonight, which includes the New Christs as headliners, Cold Harbour prove more than up to the task.

A five piece outfit who have been knocking around for a while, they play what could be loosely described as garage rock, but with a depth that some younger bands would do well to pay attention to. They occasionally add a countryish, spaghetti western twang to a deep love for Nuggets-era pop and punk, and it’s a potent blend.

They open with no fuss, straight into the knowing wink of “Wasted”, and breeze through a solid set. And by “breeze”, I mean they pull off the trick of making the difficult seem easy. There’s no flash here, but then there’s no need for showiness when the classically structured, riff-heavy tunes speak for themselves. But that means there’s no room to hide, either- this stuff has to stand or fall on it’s merits. And stand it does, to the bewilderment of some of the Saturday night tourists who’ve dropped in for a quick alcopop, and found themselves confronted by a gang of grinning louts wielding guitars, churning out shouty songs about girls and car chases. You either get it or you don’t.

by Trevor Block