The New Christs have a long history running through possibly the most convoluted list of line-up changes any band has endured and still retained a moniker.  This has meant new albums have held a certain fear factor.  What will they sound like this time?  Can anything they do compare to the towering peak of “Distemper”?  Let’s face it.  If that’s your five-star album, you have a lot to live up to.

No one really sounds quite like Suzie Stapleton. Being an original artist, that is a supreme compliment. Suzie also really takes risks with her music - and that is another compliment.

He was a fixture on the Aussie live circuit until recently and Bluebottle Kiss main-man Jamie Hutchings is returning to the fray with a new album and band, Infinity Broke.

Adelaide has a history of swaggering, scrunching rock and roll bands who manage to spit out one single or EP and vanish into the backwater. Acid Drops and Die Dancing Bears, for example. Few are lucky enough to release an LP and get away with it like, say, The Primevils and the Exploding White Mice.

"There is a lot of junk on the radio, take a look if you don’t know,” Ed Kuepper declares on the opening track of “The Return of The Mail Order Bridegroom”.   The mood is reflective and stripped-back with the acoustic chords ringing in an underpinning soundscape. 

Ed’s solo career over the last 30 years has been prolific, emerging from the dust and legacy of arguably one of the world’s great proto-punks bands, The Saints, who were way too cool and intelligent for Old Blighty, and continuing with the magnificent direction that that he took his music with Laughing Clowns.

“Incantation”, the first New Christs studio album in five years, hits the shelves on June 6. Recorded by Jim Moginie (Midnight Oil) in his Sydney studio and mixed at the famed Alberts Studios by award winning engineer Wayne Connolly, you can see the cover artwork at right and can hear the first single, "Waves Form", by clicking More (if you're on the front page) or by scrolling down (if you landed direct.)

Do you miss the thrill of the unexpected? Do you long for the anticipation and uncertainty that goes with risk taking and the sudden inhale of breath in response to seeing someone break the rules? You need to visit The Imperial Hotel in Sydney’s Erskineville on a Friday night.

The New Christs emerged from the recording studio to play a show at Thirroul Hotel south of Sydney last Sunday. Ace videographer Boris Zemljacenko of BZ Film Co was on hand to shoot some footage. This is "It's Not A Game" from the forthcoming album "Incantations." 

BZ Films on YouTube

The "Stoneage Romeos" line-up of the Hoodoo Gurus will reunite for this year's Splendour In The Grass festival in Byron Bay on Friday, July 25.

Clyde Bramley and James Baker, original members of the Hoodoo Gurus - post the bass-less line-up which went under the name Le Hoodoo Gurus - will join the band for part of the bracket.