Project Description

TINY LITTLE HOUSES

@ Jack Rabbit Slim’s

(Live Review)

16/03/18

Reviewer: Melanie Griffiths

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Tiny Little Houses are distinctly millennial, with their first album ‘Idiot Proverbs’ the foursome remunerate on the disappointment of adulthood and the weariness encountered by a generation that has finally come into their twenties only to discover the Aussie dream might actually be a complete fairytale. Oddly enough, this disassociation gives a strong affiliation to a 90s post-grunge sound with its loud guitars and an achingly strong vocal.

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Eliza Klatt of Eliza & The Delusionals – by Jodie Downie

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With support given by The Spring Peaks and Eliza And The Delusionals, the sold-out crowd took position early. Singer Caleb Karvountzis had been battling the flu but you wouldn’t know it as he stood out from his other bandmates, Sean Mullins, Clancy Bond and Al Yamin, as he glowed like a candle on the darkened stage, from his white shirt. As they quickly started with ‘Idiot Proverb’, Karvountvis’ voice is so vociferous it demands your undivided attention, indeed close your eyes and you could be easily convinced you were listening to Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock’s younger brother.

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Tiny Little Houses – by Jodie Downie

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There is an intimacy to their songs, a mood probably set years ago when Karvountzis developed the sound of Tiny Little Houses from his bedroom. Unlike other Australian contemporaries, Tiny Little Houses overlook grand gestures and ideas to focus on the self, the smaller mundane things that disquieten our sensibilities.

‘Everyone Is’ and ‘Caroline’ leaned heavily on fuzzy guitars and fine vocals a true homage to the 90s folk-rock that crawled out of the ashes of grunge. Their penchant for quiet verses and lusty choruses had the crowd hanging off every guitar riff. Like quiet achievers, they made their way through most of their debut album giving a performance that was hardly rollicking but overall was really moorish.

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Caleb Karvountzis of Tiny Little Houses – by Jodie Downie

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Playing just over an hour, the songs were short affairs and rather than being punchy pocket-rocket renditions came over more as telling us how it was, refusing to flourish a story with unnecessary detail. It left the audience somewhat hanging, affecting the rhythm of their set as a whole. There were some pearlers, with ‘Nowhere SA’, a song of longing which was tweaked allowing the guitars to delve into a darker, messier sound than what you hear on the record. It points to a band capable of some serious self-reflectional and light and shade, especially when they followed up immediately with the slow burn of 2015’s ‘You Tore My Heart Out’ and the lingering emotional embers it leaves behind.

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Caleb Karvountzis of Tiny Little Houses – by Jodie Downie

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And as appreciative as the crowd was to this it was their more upbeat, well-played songs that got the greatest reaction; ‘Entitled Generation’, ‘Short Hair’, and ‘Garbage Bin’ (which closed out the set) are this band’s self-deprecating ‘rebel yell’ as everyone joined in with “Damn our entitled generation!”. Still maybe the generations aren’t that disengaged from one another because despite all the satirical lamenting their songs may hold, the band came back for their encore to do a cover of ABBA’s ‘S.O.S’. A relic from the very generations that millennials seem at odds with, suggesting that maybe in the end we all go through the same trials in life.

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