Hideous Sun Demon are something of Perth, Australia’s best kept secret – shielded from the national spotlight neighbours Tame Impala or POND might enjoy, Hideous have been brewing like the bacteria in that cup of coffee your science teacher left at the back of the classroom that one time, crawling from the ooze with their first album Sweat and practically an ecosystem of fellow grotty boy garage bands: Cool Band, Kitchen People and Aborted Tortoise to name a few.
It’s hard to explain what they sound like without using that tactile language: like the black stuff that comes out of a roadkill kangaroo, like the thick, viscous fake blood – the stuff that smells of liquid plastic – that squirts out of Ozploitation horror films, like pen ink spilt over your foot from a poorly executed stick ‘n’ poke, like that one patch of the couch no one will sit on after that one unfortunate happening at that one terrible party, the one that Gideon brought that THC-moonshine to, the one where the toilet was blocked up five metres down and Tom woke up six kilometres away naked in a park the next day. Or maybe take a bit of grunge fuzz and grind, a bit of psychobilly dexamphetamines, add the manic hoots and screeches of frontman Vin Buchanan-Simpson panting over the muscles of a gym junkie in ‘Flex’ (“Feel them crawling under my skin/Is it bigger?/Is it bigger?”) or word salad of ‘Ohio (Is It Dead Yet?)’, sprinkle a pinch of metal in mad shredding guitar solos and a dash of psych in extended psych-outs like ‘Neon Sound’, and you have an approximation of Hideous Sun Demon.
Speaking personally from Ground Zero, Hideous Sun Demon were the first live band I saw that gave me that hunch, you know, that something else was going down. There are certain bands that work their way into your life like that – like that mystery sticky patch you can’t get off your jeans – and start to define it. I remember vividly the release of their Meat EP, probably my first introduction to just what this scene could be: hosted by the tiny indie bar Mojo’s and opened by Frozen Ocean, it rocketed straight off the charts packed floor to ceiling with moshers and crowd surfers, and a place for just about everyone fucked in the head in our isolated city. Two years later and Hideous have gone from strength to strength, winning a local best in show competition, a WAM award, and releasing their first album with another close on the horizon. In person the guys are in equal parts mental, sweet, hard-working and utterly fucked and steal hearts as quickly as they do ears – it’s rare to recommend a great band on their character, but then it’s rare to be able to.
For fans of The Cramps, The Damned, The Stooges, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, and Mad Max. If you’re looking for something with a bit of grit, don’t go past these boys.
Hideous Sun Demon can be found on Facebook, Bandcamp, and Youtube.
The photographer for the image included above is unlisted.
Photo credit (main image): George Foster.
