Outsiders come in

An expatriate is someone temporarily or permanently in a country and culture other than that of their upbringing and/or legal residence. Perhaps the band Expatriate was titled so due to their lead singer spending his childhood years in the chaotic Indonesian capital, or perhaps it is a by-product of the world in which we find ourselves today, as Expatriate themselves put it, “the world is going through some dark times politically”. Whatever the reason, this act could be named Crap and people would throng to their shows.

Expatriate’s debut EP, Lovers Le Strange has been released to critical acclaim. It is unfathomable to think that Expatriate formed just one year ago. Since their beginnings the band has grown into a formidable live rock act and featured as one of Triple J’s artists in Australian Music Month. And if that’s not enough to entice you to buy – they were handpicked by Decoder Ring, The Presets, The Red Riders and Har Mar Superstar to warm up the audience at their national tours. The members of the band include Ben King on vocals/guitar, Damian Press on keyboard/guitar/backing vocals/engineer (the obvious lifeline of the band), Chris Kollias on drums and the recently joined bassist Dave Mullins.

The overwhelming sentiment with this act is that anything assigned with their name, is an original product of their own earnest labour. The artworks on their EP cover, the production of the EP, the lyrics and music, the studio recording and the webpage – it all appears to be authentically Expatriate.

The essential ingredient of the music is that it’s far from raw, any Jack Johnson/Pete Murray stripped vocals/acoustic guitar fans should steer clear from this. The act pulls a lot of sounds from all ambits, the opinion is not one of anti-production. There are 80s melodies, dark riffs and choppy drumbeats – the music is insightful and has momentous depth, not to mention that these lads are very well dressed rockers. The girls faint over the Paul Banks-esque lead singer and I hypothesise that Expatriate will have no trouble attracting a solid base of female groupies.

The performance kicked off with Heart Attack and instantaneously demanded attention with Killer Cat, Times Like These, Blackbird, Get Out Get In, Aviation at Night and their current single The Spaces Between. The crowd seems thoroughly impressed and its hard to tell if people came here tonight purely for the support act.

Aviation at Night is especially poignant, associated with the most recent invasion of Iraq and the conscience that all should “just take some time out to think about what else is happening elsewhere… Some people in the world don’t have a choice as to what they want to listen to.”

Amelia Vedalago

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Expatriate (live)

EP: Lovers le Strange
Label: Dew Process