Oztix | News | This One Time, On Bandcamp: Thanartist

After keeping things light and ebullient last week with the multifaceted grooves of Cairns outfit The Taste, we're dropping the tuning, lowering the stance and getting guttural to rock out with this week's act and their brand new debut album.

No sense dragging out the intro, then. Let's do this.

Thanartist — Mackay, Queensland

Let's face it: regional Australia is super-ripe when it comes to turning out heavy-hitting metal/melodic hardcore bands that stand out from the pack. The Amity Affliction hail from Gympie; Parkway Drive and In Hearts Wake are Byron boys; I Killed The Prom Queen came out of Adelaide — I know, I know, we've been over this — and even Thy Art Is Murder erupted out of, uh... the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown. Which, hey, is still 34 kilometres from the CBD. Regional enough.

OK, so it's not necessarily a commonality that holds up to any kind of serious scrutiny but, look, there's clearly something to be said for growing up in relative isolation as far as having a tangible effect on creating young artists who turn to music to help deal with the frustration and confusion wrought from the experience. And it just seems like a lot of them seem to be really good at it.

Those ranks include Mackay outfit Thanartist, who have freshly released their debut studio full-length, Face The Hurricane, a remarkably well-developed and polished piece of work that spans 10 tracks of blistering riffs, dynamic build-ups, chunky breakdowns, ambient soundscapes, scorching screams and powerful melody all rolled into one cohesive and supremely tight package.

Of course, although this is the band's first album, it's far from their first rodeo (are rodeos still a thing up north? I haven't been to one since I last visited Charters Towers in, like, 1995 — go Miners!). In fact, Thanartist have been cutting their teeth and honing their chops together for more than five years now, having first come together back in 2010-11ish before putting out their first EP, Torment Of War, in 2013.

They've built their reputation through a series of tours, headline shows and increasingly high-profile support slots, appearing alongside contemporaries such as Northlane, A Breach Of Silence, The Amity Affliction, Dream On Dreamer, Buried In Verona, Red In Tooth, Fifth Day Of Ice, Bayharbour, Bare Bones and more along the way.

It's a safe bet that, now they've pushed their debut full-length out into the world, they'll be turning more heads than ever — in fact, new single Guardian has already nabbed some cheeky airplay on triple j by way of Short.Fast.Loud — and will hopefully start earning the kind of recognition fitting the amount of blood, sweat and tears they've poured into this band over the past half-decade or so.

Swing them a Like on Facebook to make sure you're on top of it when they next venture out from their hometown — it won't be a show you'll want to miss.