A Sound Mind
Billboard

For a band so new to the flourishing heavy rock scene and who, since their conception, have made a brave and conscientious effort to avoid winding up just another cog in the mighty machine of the music industry through a mammoth effort involving a street team, self funded tours and most importantly the bands ever evolving commitment to introducing their music to people on the street with just an MP3 player and a headset, Melbourne’s A Sound Mind lured an impressively large crowd to Billboard, where their debut album Harmonia was brought to life in an epic hour set. 

Where other acts flounder around for years trying to juxtapose that formula of polish and professionalism, A Sound Mind have somehow managed to bypass much of the early days of trial and error, delivering a show with countless moments of inspired magic that melded ambience and atmospherics with a dramatic, intense delivery. 
This is an act that is hungry for the moment, that takes whatever they can get and then drives their show to an almost frenzied level of ambition and passion. 

What was missing from the Hi Fi gig a few weeks ago was rectified this evening, with a concentrated focus and some moments of genuine sparkle.  True, frontman and keyboardist Anthony Kupinic didn’t always reach the epic notes, but the moments in which his vocals soared with grace like on the haunting Empathy, boiled and blistered on Venus and Mars or skirted the edges of dark tranquility that rose to a thunderous momentum on Catharsis, paid off for any minor miscalculations tenfold.  

Guitarist Glenn Parkinson, drummer Kiran Khan and bassist, orchestration whiz and production wunderkind Andrew Bishop were on fire displaying the kind of manic enthusiasm that comes from a true belief in their combined creative powers, with Khan’s frenetic, feverish drum solo absolute madness and Kupinic’s masterful tinkering on the keys an interesting insight into a latent talent that is perhaps too often ignored. 

It’s early days but A Sound Mind are proving to be a compelling confection in a scene that too often stays within the margins.  Their many facets – be it the theatrical orchestration pieces, the rapid fire of industrial tinged beats, the wandering exquisiteness of the piano, the heavy, churning guitars, the powerhouse drumming or the vocals that scale godly heights then plummet to back to earth are all strangely alluring and never fail to excite. 

Helen Barradell