Bands: We Lost The Sea, Lucid Planet
Venue: Howler, Melbourne, Australia (Naarm, Woiwurrung country)
Date: 6th April 2024
Review and photos by: Ben Eldstrom
From soaring explorations of planetary consciousness to weightless astral projections, Lucid Planet and We Lost The Sea treated Melbourne to an evening of music that was out of this world.
Lucid Planet
The night began awash in colour and fuzz as Lucid Planet took to the stage. This four-piece casually think outside the box for their song structures, masking some strong progressive elements and deliberately odd arrangements underneath the chill familiarity of stoner rock. You might think “wait, that’s Mastodon!” and you’d be close certainly in terms of vocals, but Lucid Planet have committed to experimentation to a greater depth and are somehow more Mastodon than Mastodon are, to the point where the comparison feels weak.
Lucid Planet feel so much bigger than just a four-piece, too, which is spurred along by their front man Luke on double duties with vocals and a bass that positively rumbles. They garnered plenty of bopping and dancing from the crowd as they shifted from heavy chugs to ethereal spacey soundscapes to upbeat synth rhythms, all against the backing of suitably matched psychedelic projections.
Lucid Planet clearly aim to take you on a collective journey of the mind, and the pull it off with seemingly effortless composure. You’ll never feel so comfortable and relaxed having an out-of-body experience, all while questioning the concept of consciousness itself.
We Lost The Sea
The opening lecture from William S. Burroughs on We Lost The Sea‘s Challenger Pt 1 filled the house audio as the band waited back stage. An incredibly bold move considering both parts of Challenger are the finisher to Departure Songs, and they feel like a set finisher too. However, We Lost The Sea are nothing if not bold and brave, and they soared through Challenger Pt 1 with reverence, melancholy, reflection, and finally bombastic calamity for the crescendo. A true testament to this band’s songwriting is how much their music speaks in the total absence of vocals, a permanently gut-wrenching reminder of who they’ve lost. This emotion carries through the music and permeated the crowd, imparting many of the above qualities of reflection, reverence, and pensiveness on us all.
It’s difficult not to feel a connection with this band’s music, and plenty of punters in the crowd were showing their affection during slower movements with transcendent arm movements, fist bumps in between songs with those on stage, and a cathartic sense of relief. However as soon as the build in each song broke and reached its respective cacophony, headbanging couldn’t be resisted by most in the crowd. A beautiful release of all that had been collected and accumulated in the moments preceding.
In between tapping into material from Triumph & Disaster, We Lost The Sea also premiered some unreleased tracks which must be from their soon-to-be-recorded fifth album. One song, the name of which wasn’t stated, felt like a major celebration of joy and hope – an interesting contrast to their most revered work in Departure Songs but in line with the transition seen on their latest album.
We Lost The Sea really are a world-class post metal band, full of insightful and emotional songwriting, and the chance to see them live speaks to the heart even more than their impeccable recordings. Coupled with an excellent sound mix as heard at Howler last night across both bands, this gig was a reminder of just how fortunate we are as concert-goers in the Australian music scene.
Gig gallery
