I'VE GOT A HOLE IN MY HEART THE SIZE OF A TRUCK

The eager early arrivals tonight were treated to a set of new solo material from Pond frontman Nick Allbrook. Allbrook’s junk-addled flamboyance at Pond gigs nominates him as a grotesque character. However, Pond’s widescreen psychedelia mostly obscures the details of Allbrook’s peculiarities. Tonight he was alone onstage wielding a reverby Fender Mustang and backed by rudimentary drum programming, which proved the optimal foundation for conveying his surreal strengths. Singing with a grainy Australian inflection, Allbrook depicted a variety of concrete scenes – ranging from spying on a crush through a bakery window, to watching the cricket with his grandfather, and fearing his Qantas flight would crash. Allbrook knows where to find a classic pop melody but on the majority of these songs opted for a strangled outcry rather than an obvious melodic refrain. His irregular phrasing coupled with explicit lyrical whimsy would sound something like The Birthday Party if their violent imagery were replaced by fight-for-life urgency. The set only lasted for half an hour, suggesting Allbrook is still determining what his ‘solo’ personality is, but he commanded attention nonetheless.