Press
Album Reviews
Sundancer’ can be described as nothing short of fucking exemplary 4.5/5- Article by Max Easton
This is a satisfying journey, a sensory road-trip that pinpoints these guys as a strong force in Australian alternative blues. - Aidan Roberts Alternative Media Group
The Fumes have a sound that’s as fresh as the morning sun. And you can dance to it too.
PATRICK EMERY- Beat Magazine.
‘Aggressive Raw and Dirty’ Three Stars - Rolling Stone Magazine
“Cuddle Up The Devil” is just magnificent here and covers the same dilemmas Robert Johnson faced at his mythical crossroads.
Do you embrace the darkness in order to play music? Is it true that the devil has all the best tunes? The duality of human nature and all that. Brand new but old as the hills. – Chris Johnston The Age Magazine – May ’09 Issue (Melbourne)..
Sydney duo The Fumes are back with a vengeance with their sophomore record, Sundancer. This record sees the guys take
their rollicking bluesy rock sound to a new level, with the appearance of some beautiful piano action… – Album of the Week SYN FM
‘Album of the Week’ – PBSFM
Sundancer’ is an awesome album. It is diverse and has a beefcake of a sound – no mean feat for a two piece – and is performed by two very talented musicians. The band feels like a collage of its various influences although dirty fuzzy blues seems to be predominant, but they manage to make an album that is never boring and a much needed injection of goodness into the local scene in Australia. – Tim Cashmere Undercover.com.au
Abundantly more exciting than a reformed Wolfmother, The Fumes’ ‘Sundancer’ expresses the heart-pounding,
flesh-rending core of Dionysian rock – Scene Magazine
The Fumes are your quintessential rock band. Four & ½ stars – Eleven Magazine
This is fine working class rock, blue collar guitar and drums that is as honest as a five year old child. – Peter Ryan Music Australia Guide
‘Sundancer’ is a steak and you are hungry. These are songs that drive and grind and appear relentless. They are both terrifying and excellent. If you have the opportunity or inclination to do yourself a favour this year, this is an album that should find its way into your stereo and this is a band that should find its way onto a stage near you. Because as good as The Fumes are. Produced up, practiced, blowing one of your expensive speakers, they don’t need any of it either. – Carolyn Dempsey Inpress Melbourne
‘Sundancer’ is a solid rock n roll blues album that offers heavy beats raw and exciting riffs and sincere lyrics. It places The Fumes army at the front of the Aussie rock scene. Four stars - Emma Heard Time Off Brisbane
Press and online contact for North America Xavier Aaronson
212-231-7439
xavier@themusebox.net
Live Reviews
Queens Of The Stone Age, The Fumes @ The Arena, Brisbane (28/03/2008)
Reviews by gumbuoy, 27th March, 2008
Queens of the Stone Age have always had a huge fan base in Australia, and tonight they proved why as they ripped the roof off the Arena to kickstart the V Fest festivities.
Garage two-pieces are a dime-a-dozen these days, but they don’t get much better than opening act The Fumes. Stripped of all the pomp and strut which can often accompany such duos, Steve Merry (vocals/guitar) and Joel Battersby (drums) do their thing with a minimum of fuss, and a maximum of punch. Merry is dazzling with his guitar work, and Battersby punches out rhythms with consumate ease, although you can tell from the look on his face, he’s concentrating pretty hard. Unfortunately, the crowd, while vocal in their support, don’t seem to want to dance, except for during hit single Automobile, where the power riffs manage to get a few people tapping along. The set ends prematurely due to some drum issues, but the roar which sees them off the stage shows that this crowd has well and truly warmed to the Fumes.
Queens Of The Stone Age, The Fumes @ The Arena, Brisbane (28/03/2008)
Review from Time Out Magazine
A largely unknown proposition for a majority of the audience, fabulously bearded Sydney duo The Fumes amble onto stage with no attitude that could possibly suggest the blistering set they are about to deliver. While their studio output is tastefully aggressive blues-rock, live, they are an entirely different proposition. Stomping work-outs like ‘Automobile’ are hammered into the audience with a power that is humbling in its intensity, whereas driving anthems like ‘The Dogs’ are transformed from ZZ Top to Minor Threat - charging through the audience with all the mercy and remorse of a semi-trailer travelling at 120km/h. Concluding on a jam-tastic rendition of the hyperkinetic ‘Shake Them Bones’, The Fumes leave the stage to the uproarious cries of the converted and, in the process, throw down the gauntlet to the headliners.
Queens Of The Stone Age, The Fumes @ The Big Top – Luna Park, Sydney (28/03/2008)
Review by Fiona Cameron, Drum Media #900, 8 April 2008
Some nights it’s like this, where it all goes well from the moment you close your front door until you stagger out of the venue a couple of hours later, exhilarated and exhausted, quivering like a 10-year-old hopped up on sugar, shrieking “I wanna go AGAIN!” And yes, that was me.
You gotta love The Fumes. The duo appeared on stage, cranked out an outstanding set and managed to make me forget just for a little while who we had all come to see. Theirs was a skuzzy, swampy, distorted sound that’s maybe second cousin once removed from the primordial ooze that rock’n’roll springs from. Think filthy, bluesy, somewhat damaged and a strangely perfect warm up for the Queens show. Who wants cool when raw, blistering guitar and drums feels this good?
East Brunswick Club 23.3.07
‘…Possibly at other times this review might not have been so harsh upon the Whiskeys, but then TheFumes stepped up, and their complete lack of pretension made the contrast more glaring.No cravats, no shoes and surely no mirrors backstage, the duo simply got up adorned in nothing more elaborate than a beard or singlet and played. And by sweet fuck, did they play!
Having been talked up recently from the venerable likes of fellow Inpress scibe Sam Fell ( I was raving about them six months ago Sam, that makes me six months cooler than you!), word had obviously gotten around, and the by now sold-out East Brunswick Club will surely be opening upthe partition next time these guys stomp into town. They were simple awesome. Feeding of the anticipation and energy of the congested and responsive crowd Steve Merry belted his way through intricately woven, finger picked steel guitar blues and raw, rabid riffs to the compelling, carnage incontrol rhythm of Joel Battersby. The go go girls couldn’t contain themselves in the excitement, buthaving just landed on stage, they were quickly ushered away through the gestures of Battersby.Playtime’s over kiddies, the men are playing some bad-arse music right now.
Whether it be the riff driven rock of single ‘Automobile’ to the more sedate steel guitar twang of Mystery Belle, Merry’s gruff and gravel –gargled voice always maintained the listeners attention, even to the point of having awe-inspired Legs front man MacKinnon down side of stage playing along unplugged like a kid taking notes.
In the time of two pieces vying for attention and beset by dismissive comparisons, The Fumes are simply going from strength to strength, to the point that you’ll have to book ahead next time they arrive in town. The reason for this; they write and play great fucking music. Class over.’
Jayson Argall- Inpress Magazine
