Amarillo find reward in new project of their own
The term ‘side-project’ can
be a dirty one in music. With connotations of said project not being as
important as an artist’s main gig, it can often slip under the radar, nothing
more than a blip, soon to be relegated to the oft-used dustbin of musical
history.
Despite these implications
though, there are projects that stem from others that do stand tall in their
own right. Defined by strong writing and playing, they’re bands that truly
become their own entity – Melbourne quartet Amarillo fit firmly into this camp.
The brainchild of Raised By
Eagles co-founder and guitarist Nick O’Mara, along with singer-songwriter Jac
Tonks, Amarillo are the real deal – a vehicle for this pair, along with bassist
Trent McKenzie and drummer Alex Rogowski, to showcase songs written outside
their respective main gigs, the band has blossomed over the past couple of
years.
“When Jac and I met, she had
a whole lot of demos, and I’m always writing songs,” explains O’Mara on the
origins of the group. “It really came about from helping each other finish
songs, sitting around playing songs together, then deciding we should play them
for the public.”
“Some songs are suited to
certain projects,” he goes on. “Jac likes a lot of bands that I really love
that aren’t touchstones or influences for other bands I’m in, like Raised By
Eagles, so Amarillo is a really fun outlet for those kind of bands, those
English bands like XTC, The SUNDAYS, stuff like that.”
These influences, along with
a healthy does of Americana, define the band’s debut long-player, Eyes Still Fixed, which follows on from
their 2014 eponymous EP. The album, a lot of which was written on the road in
the Northern Territory, is warm and lush, the songs, as you would expect, the
true focus.
“We wanted to try and capture
the distance and broadness of the environment in [the Territory], we wanted
that atmosphere,” O’Mara explains of the album’s nine tracks. “We didn’t do it
so consciously, but we wanted the feeling of where we’d written the song, to
still be in it when we recorded it.”
Produced by O’Mara’s cousin,
Shane O’Mara, Eyes Still Fixed
carries a lot of weight. Yes, the band’s members are known for work elsewhere,
but it’s in this incarnation that they’re shining just as brightly – with this
album, Amarillo have proven they’re something all their own.
Samuel J. Fell
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