Emu – Emu

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · October 31, 2024

Emu is a heavy riff rock band from Australia. The bio on their Bandcamp page simply states: “A rock n’ roll power trio hailing from the Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia. Emu is an explosive sonic hurricane, letting rip cosmic & righteous jams.” I couldn’t agree more! The band totally shreds and create an enormous sound with only three members. The lineup consists of Connor Mitchell on guitars and vocals, Alex Luhrs on bass, and Henry Bennett on drums. Emu released their Self Titled album on August 19th 2024., on No Groove No Good Records. The six song recording is a scorcher at 42 minutes long.

“New Age” opens the album with an auditory explosion! The song cranks from the first note and captures the band’s frenzied guitar riff-ery in an instant. The big and heavy riff rocking sound is magnified once Connor Mitchell’s larger than life power house vocals enter the mix. He’s got a classic rock essence to his delivery and sounds great. His guitar playing is masterful with leads galore structured within the music itself. Emu has a sound that is rooted in the vintage rock seventies. The seven and a half minute song has a classic metal wallop about it also and doesn’t let up until a cool bridge part, at about three minutes and forty five seconds into the song. The music shifts into a softer transition of clean guitars, complimentary percussion and a funky bass line, with a psychedelic spoken passage. The song builds back up and displays some articulated guitar soloing. Emu has a good grasp on songwriting that builds up, comes down, and flavors every note with blazing harmonies and rhythm. “Desert Phoenix” proves that statement elegantly. The band is a riff riding machine that blends mixed elements of hard and progressive rock, heavy metal, psychedelic, and jamming interludes of melodies. Emu also locks into a groove that gets the head bobbing upon the first exposure. The band play super tight together and portrays intricate rhythms throughout “Desert Phoenix”. The seamless riff changes catapults their big sound and the bluesy guitar solos are infectious.

The third song “Sittin’ Here Thinkin’” is another wave of drum pummeling and riff mayhem. The guitar tones are so radiant and the song has a swinging blues swagger injected into it. The sound quality of this recording is pristine and huge but not saturated with digital perfection. There’s a sweet seventies tonal vibe and feel which gives the album a distinct charm about it. The fourth track is a three minute plus instrumental of clean guitars and percussive sound scapes that merge classical and tribal. The song is called “The Hatching” and shows some fresh musical elements that are not overblown distortion. It adds a fantastic atmospheric depth to the record and sets up the next track, “Once Were Gums” perfectly. The mellow-ish song is exceptional in its execution. It addresses a different musical side to Emu that extrapolates any theories of the band being pigeonholed into one musical direction. The final song on this album ends with a big and important question, “Will We Ever Learn?” It’s another grand song with the band exploring the plethora of influences that govern them. The music correlates sounds of old, new, rocking, and blues. It’s a good cherry topper to the band’s fuzz rocking sundae. Another wonderful display of the musical diversity that Emu harness.

Quite honestly, I am blown away with this debut album from this Australia based band. I was enamored with the riffs and vocals upon my very first listen and now the appreciation for this music is beyond explanation. Being a fan of seventies classic rock and modern day stoner rock, Emu closes the gap in an enchanted way that few bands can fully accomplish.