Reviewed onSunday April 10
There’s something about Fractures, the electronically inclined musical project of one Mark Zito, that doesn’t quite even out or add up. Perhaps it’s Vito’s between-song banter, which may intend to be humorous but more often than not comes across as misplaced arrogance. Perhaps it’s the scatterbrained nature of the music itself, which goes from crescendo-laden highs to tinny, uninspired lows often within the same song. In either case, there’s not much consistency. That also means, however, that it’s difficult to make a judgement call. For every good point surrounding Vito’s music – here filled out by a competent duo on guitars/keyboards and drums, respectively – there will be something that detracts from it. Fractures, as a result, resides in a grey area and needs to find a way out of there.
The demand to see Daughter at one of only two shows being performed in Australia was so great that the originally sold-out Metro was upgraded to the twice-as-big Enmore Theatre. There are literally thousands of people that want to see Daughter live – at least, that’s what one would be led to reasonably believe. And yet (this is a pretty big ‘and yet’, too), there is a subset of the audience that has come to this show with the sole intention of talking through the performance and waiting for the quietest moment of the quietest song to let out a “WOOOOOO!” Was there a miscommunication over how this show would work? Or have we truly reached such a level of disrespect to the artists we pay through the nose to see that we feel entitled to treat them as background noise to our all-important nattering?
As far as Daughter themselves are concerned, they play capably and smartly. None of the aforementioned issues are their fault at all. The room is filled – on the rare occasion that the crowd ceases talking – with their layered, brooding style of indie rock, justifying the theatre upsize. New material from January’s Not To Disappear, such as ‘Doing The Right Thing’ and stunning opener ‘How’ serve as set highlights, as does a truly tender and heart-wrenching ‘Smother’, which could well be the standout rendition of the entire evening.
Vocalist Elena Tonra is overwhelmed at the size of the show itself, timidly thanking the audience for coming along. If only said audience could extend Tonra and her bandmates the same respect. Alas.
