Cool repetitive starts with rolling guitar riffs. Great little guitar melodies kicking in, repeating for a while and dropping out. Clean rock vocal structures and melodies and about 1000 different guitar tones. One thing is for sure, The Magic Bones never get boring.

The Magic Bones layer the shit out of their songs, creating a range of soundscapes on which they build great rock songs. Expansive pedal boards out the front demonstrate the way they express their intentions not just through the notes they play but through the sounds they create as well.

They take their progressions to great places. Just when you think a progression may be getting a bit repetitive, they knock it down to a minor, or run off down a few notes and it just throws the whole song into a new direction making you think ‘WOAH! I love that change!’ These little gems, in songs like “Stars” or “Gouge”, are my favourite thing about The Magic Bones. They play strongly on simplicity- not swapping between progressions over and over until they are thrashed. Similarly, interesting guitar hooks drop in and out of the music, but are never done to death, making you hang out to hear them again.

The Magic Bones is somewhat of a musical interplay between multi-instrumentalists Richard Bowers and Dylan Thorpe. The two take turns through-out the set to sing, play drums and play both electric and acoustic guitars. In these areas they both compliment and contrast each other. Bowers drumming over the first half of the set was full and loud, with big constant crashes over very staccato beats. The single “Space Between Us” show this style, where the sound is filled out by deafeningly constant crash cymbals. Thorpe on the other hand plays drums with an unrivalled fervour, technically brilliant and incredibly fast. Like in “Allison” and “I Said It” Thorpe puts so much power into his complicated and detailed beats and fills.

The vocals of the two were also well matched. Thorpes is very clear and hits notes seemingly effortlessly. Bowers on the other hand has a higher pitched rock rasp. Together they make for a formidable rock 'n' roll sound. While some of the songs vocals came through in the sound spectrum really well, I thought the effects on the vocals could have come down by about half on some of the tracks, where the echoey reverb muddied the intent of the verses and made it hard to connect with the lyrics.

Hales totally holds shit down. His bass underpins everything The Magic Bones create. He has a massive range of fucking awesome bass-lines, from simple low end notes with octave flourishes, like in the Leonard Cohen cover “I’m Your Man”, to scale based rundowns and rock riffs show in “Stars”. The low end really balances against the guitars and in both the rhythm and the actual notes being played.

If the three boys are the Bones, then O’Connor is the Magic. A lot of the interesting guitar bits that pop in and out of the music at seemingly random, although perfectly calculated places are courtesy of O’Connor. Almost quietly in the background, she adds elegance to the more flashy showmanship of Thorpe and Bowers taking turns centre stage, providing her own unique tones and effects to the music. Although she provided some backing vocals I felt she was underused. I heard she has a pretty amazing voice, so I wonder if the band would consider looking into that angle some more.

The Magic Bones play rock 'n' roll with a varied array of influences and styles subtly coming out in their set. No one song fits a genre, but any one sound they make could be psych rock, pop, American country rock, garage and many more. One thing is for sure, it is rock 'n' roll. Just check out my absolutely favourite track of theirs, “Sell You”. This monster of a party riff has the melody, the pace and the beat to make you smile, to make you drink, and to make you dance. The last twenty minutes of the set was pretty much just one massive rock jam, with the guys absolutely going nuts to finish off on “Devil (I’ll Be The)”. They have a lot of technical skill, put a lot of effort into defining their own sound, and match this with a passion and energy on stage. Check them out around Melbourne and keep an eye out for their debut release coming soon.