AGNES MANNERS
THEY ARE an experimental emo-pop outfit from Sydney who deal in poignant and picturesque soundscapes bellied with luminous strings and soaring guitars. Initially the brainchild of artcore trailblazer Matthew Gravolin (formerly of Hellions and The Bride), Agnes Manners is now a fully fleshed-out band ready to bring the beauty and brutishness of Fantasia Famish to life.
THEY SOUND LIKE a night at the opera gone horribly, yet comically wrong, where the resulting night of chaos and calamity takes place entirely within the theatre’s walls. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll have the time of your goddamn life.
YOU’LL DIG THEM IF YOU LIKE The National, Forgive Durden and Panic! At The Disco. Fans of Gravolin’s work in Hellions will feel especially at home, too – it feels like this is what he was inching the band towards with their last two LPs in particular. Without the boundaries of Hellions’ established background, however, Gravolin is able to flesh his concept out to its full thematic potential.
YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT the aforementioned debut album Fantasia Famish, which takes listeners on a bewitching ride through mountainous peaks and valleys of bliss and bleakness alike. The LP at every turn heady and heartfelt, Gravolin trades the volume and intensity of his former projects for a smokier, more opaquely theatrical dynamic. Don’t take that to mean there aren’t some skull-rattlingly hectic moments to be unearthed, though...