The winds blowing in Perth are carrying its residents’ chimes around the world. Currently, Fremantle’s very own Tame Impala are massaging earwaves on a global scale, and before that, Karnivool were tearing sounds apart with their unique take on progressive rock. The slither of green and beach that clings to the Indian Ocean has lately proven itself an oasis for an otherwise rather parched and weary world of music.
Progressive metallers Chaos Divine, soon to hit these Sydney shores, are yet another Swanside band coming to our collective rescue. And this time they’re bringing Melbourne genre-benders AlithiA with them – well, sort of.
The upcoming show at the Factory Floor will be part one in a two-part double-billing tour, not much unlike the Queens of the Stone Age/Nine Inch Nails runaround last year. Chaos Divine will headline in Sydney, before swapping roles in AlithiA’s hometown a night later. Hemina and The Winter Effect will also be joining, for the Sydney gig at least.
Why the partnership with AlithiA, though? “They’re a really interesting band,” says Ryan Felton, full-time guitarist and part-time keyboardist of Chaos Divine. “We actually had them over [in Perth] for our ‘Soldiers’ single launch in 2014, and so they came over and we hit it off from there, really. They’re really cool guys, and they’re a very interesting band and very, very different from anyone we’ve played with before.
“They’ve a very hard genre – you know, what they’re playing is a sort of a space-prog-rock kinda combination. So yeah, they came over, we had a bunch of really good shows and we really dig them.”
What’s more, this won’t be the regular old show – the double-billing aside – because AlithiA have a rather conspicuous trick hidden up their sleeve: they have made a short film, and they intend to show it. Sacrifice, described by the band as “part-mockumentary, part-art film”, will be given an advanced screening at both dates. Felton can’t really delve into more information than that; he’s only seen the trailer, but has been assured it’s almost Spinal Tap-esque.
For Chaos Divine, meanwhile, 2015 has so far seen the release of their second album, Colliding Skies, back in March, followed by an autumn tour of Australia. On paper, this year also marks the band’s tenth anniversary, but when quizzed about it, Felton palms it off. “You could probably say this is our ten-year anniversary, but we didn’t really consider ourselves serious probably until 2006, because that’s when we released our first EP.”
Since then, other than Colliding Skies, the lads have also released another EP (Avalon, 2008) and album (The Human Connection, 2011). Just as strikingly, they recorded their own version of Toto’s classic, ‘Africa’. In a manner not too far from something you’d see in the movies, an idea originally pursued on a whim turned into an almost overnight sensation, becoming Toto guitarist Steve Lukather’s favourite cover version. “He ended up tweeting … that this was the best cover version he’d ever heard,” Felton says.
Beyond this mini-tour, Chaos Divine plan to fit in more shows on the eastern seaboard. Their appearance at Brisbane’s Bigsound, taking place in early September, has been recently announced, and they plan to use that gig as a platform for more shows. Last time the lads were in Europe, ‘Soldiers’ was winning the West Australian Music award for Best Heavy/Metal Song of 2014 (“We had to have a friend go pick it up for us,” says Felton). By mid-2016, Chaos Divine will be in the Northern Hemisphere once more. May fortune smile upon them.
Chaos Divine’s Colliding Skies is out now through Firestarter. They play the Factory Floor, with AlithiA, Hemina and The Winter Effect, on Friday August 28.
