A few years ago, while watching “The Voice” in my home country, I heard one of the coaches – a flamboyant personality who fuses many different genres in his sound, including operatic pop – give a contestant a million-dollar piece of advice.
He said something along the lines of: “Some people will like your music. Some people will hate it. But everyone will remember who you are because you’re not dull. You are something—something different.”
I’m pretty sure the members of Axon Breeze don’t aspire to win the Aussie edition of the popular singing competition. But the fierce duo very much fits the definition of not conforming to any norm. Their freshly dropped single is a testament to that artistic defiance.
PART 250 OF “AM I EVER GONNA SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN?” A RANDOM COLLECTION OF UNKNOWINGLY OBVIOUS FACTS ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN MUSIC SCENE
Tasmania’s (or Lutruwita’s in the local Aboriginal language) creative scene is still a mystery to me.
Sure, I can name a few acts and events from that part of Australia. I also spent some time on the island during a fun Christmas/New Year’s trip in 2018, tasted all its flavours, and visited the famous (or infamous?) MONA (Museum of Old and New Art).
What can I say… Tassie blew my mind. So if there’s one thing I regret from my time back in Oz, it’s never having experienced Hobart’s (Nipaluna’s) notorious underground culture.
The best place to get that vibe is hands down during the city’s annual mid-winter arts and music festival – Dark Mofo has an unrivalled reputation for being provocative and daring. Funnily, these are exactly the words I’d use to describe the band repping that part of the world that recently appeared on my radar.
Axon Breeze is a two-piece made up of JR Brennan on vocals, bass and guitar, and Sam Dowson on drums and sampler. While they dub themselves “grind core for the dance floor”, the idea behind their controversial project is to confound listeners.
And that is already achieved by the members’ professional journeys.
The multi-pronged vocalist led 90s grindcore act Flycop (on the label Spiral Objective) and infamous Berlin-based electronic duo Theatre Of Disco (Risky Disco / Future Classic). On the other hand, the drummer has previously worked with metal acts, like Mephistopheles, Milquebarth and RVNKNG. Neither is a stranger to subversion by day, having been a parole officer and a lawyer in their respective parallel universes.
The two made quite an entrance as Axon Breeze.
In May 2022, they shared their debut single, “You Snake”. While I’m tempted to use the “genre-bending” term to try to label it here somehow, it’s not even close to grasping what the sound represents. It’s a shifting sidewinder that defies any classification, one that draws on the nocturnal lineage of both its creators. And most notably, JR Brennan takes the metal growl, performed at low levels at times, to a completely new dimension.
It’s dark. It’s sick. It’s disturbing. And you’ll want to listen to it again and again.
Unsurprisingly, that one track was enough to secure the band a series of appearances at Dark Mofo in 2023. NME listed it in the top five performances of the festival, quoting some punters saying, “That’s what I love about Night Mass, some crazy f*ckin’ sh*t around every corner.”
And rarely does a fan review a gig in such a ridiculously accurate way. Indeed, Axon Breeze deliberately deliver shows made of unsettling soundscapes that aim for the underbelly and straddle the juncture of the dancefloor, the pit and performance art.
Both on and off stage, the duo pushes the boundaries of heavy music, with intense bursts of post-punk and hyperpop bridged with passages of drawn-out doom.
Actually, scratch that. The duo pushes the boundaries of music. Period. So they’re bound to make waves in the underground scene. And their second single, “Click”, chased that claim to fame, too.
Interestingly, though, with the third release came a slight change of tune. “Gaudete” is a slow-burning, doomy invocation rather than a direct follow-up to its predecessors. But that shift tells me that there’s a method to this madness – the third single clearly opened the gate for yet another twist in the band’s evolving sound.
If “Gaudete” was an exorcism, “Interbody Deal” is a point of collision between the duo’s background in hardcore punk and extreme metal, revealing the poetic core of the upcoming album. It’s a track that proves that Axon Breeze cannot be contained, and that their music is always discovering new shapes and territories.
The rabid new single was released on November 21. And despite its hectic nature, it’s definitely the most “pop” of everything the Tassie act has shared so far. After all, Axon Breeze sold me on the song, claiming that “It’s quick and it’s got teeth.” Add the surreal aesthetics from the music vid to the mix, and you get the “jaw-dropping” factor the duo is after with each new release.
Fear not, however – that breakneck track shifts the pace without abandoning the project’s core mood and its obsessive, relentless effect on the listener. It carries itself like a well-worn argument – sharp, looping and alive with tension. It possesses that intense intimacy that is unmistakably the duo’s signature sound. It’s something different, yet again.
The song was written at the cold end of the world in Tasmania and brought to life amid the chaos and magic of Mexico City. You couldn’t have asked for a bigger dichotomy, right? Consequently, the track cleverly spans these two extremes.
Talking about the clip, the band used two adjectives, “fun and cute”. And I’ll be honest – I doubt I would have come up with those two expressions myself to review the song.
Captivating and oddly danceable – yes. But it’s mental and grotesque, nevertheless. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate the video’s playful, unnerving character. To me, it’s more like Korn’s “Twisted Transistor” meets the French post-apocalyptic black comedy “Delicatessen”, though.
Again, not something I expected. But by now, I’ve figured out that that unpredictability is exactly the vibe the band is going for.
Along with this last track came a new website and a middle finger to Spotify, as the duo has resolutely decided against sharing its music on the streaming giant. (On a side note: earlier in this post, I redirected you to the band’s music on Spotify since there’s nowhere else shareable where I can find their entire repertoire in one place. Isn’t it ironic?)
All in all, it looks like things are happening in the Axon Breeze universe. A debut album is in the works, too. And if the four singles are anything to go by, buckle up, everyone. They’re getting ready to drop more obscene, batsh*t crazy bombshells in the near future. ONE. HUNDRED. PERCENT. It’s just a matter of when.
The obvious question is also: Where will the two-piece go after this? Or, paraphrasing the words of that coach from “The Voice”, what kind of something different will they pull off next time around?
It’s anybody’s guess, really. But even though I am not an expert in the Tassie scene, believe me when I say this: Axon Breeze is not an Aussie act you wanna sleep on in 2025. So get amongst it while they’re still provocative, daring, dark, and underground.
Get to know more Aussie acts doing something different in the music scene:
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