Expatriate
Pauhaus Festival, Brisbane

There’s a medium-sized crowd gathered in front of Sydney’s Expatriate to kill time before The Grates start. Sure, the hewn brick walls and high ceilings here at the Powerhouse add a wonderful dimension of reverb to the dark soundscapes that punctuate their set, and the young audience seems to enjoy their “showmanship”, but anyone past the age of 21 should be scoffing at lead singer Ben King’s Dave Gahan-esque affectations and pretentious “rock & roll” carry-on.

Like too many of the acts this evening, Expatriate appropriate too heavily. This type of ironic 80s fashion and sound should have died along with electroclash – that also goes for Bit By Bats, Temper Trap and Red Riders, who can all be lumped into the 80s era U2-cum-sped-up-Cure garbage heap. Expatriate are a little darker and slower than some of their contemporaries (read: they like Depeche Mode) but there’s little soulful or challenging or original in the set.

That’s sad, because they clearly have the skills to do something interesting. ‘Crazy’, for instance, has a well-crafted shoegazey undercurrent lurking underneath its derivative dark-pop glaze. This element is brought out wonderfully in a live setting – it’s a pity the other 80 percent is pompous. They really need something else that separates them from the rest of the pile, something dangerous or sexy or even repulsive. That doesn’t mean “buy a new pair of Lee jeans” or “grow an ironic moustache,” it means grab me by the balls (if I had them) and shake me around a bit. Please.

by Jo Nilson