Totally Unicorn @ Newtown Social Club

Totally Unicorn

Newtown Social Club

Sydney, AUS

September 29, 2016

Do not let the name deter you: You want to see Totally Unicorn in all of their unbridled beauty before they blow up and no longer grace the confines of small clubs with their sweaty, nude, booze-soaked presence.

It has been a while since I’ve been to a fun hardcore punk show that left everyone with a smile on their faces, singing along to Toto’s “Africa.”

Totally Unicorn’s recently released full-length album Dream Life draws influences from the likes of Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch, Cave In and the likes.

What reads on paper like a diligent mathcore band, is an entirely different beast in a live scenario -- a beast with a spiraling, large, pointed horn projecting from its forehead at that.

Some say there is a difference between grotesque and antic.

It might be a fine line but Totally Unicorn not only walks but inhabits it when it comes to their live performance: Take the best parts of early Fucked Up’s crowd engagement, i.e. front man buried in the pit -- clothes optional -- add ample measures of alcohol and medication generated oomph and hilarity, garnish with balloons, sprinkle with the trademark Australian pisstaking and stir with the barrel of a confetti canon.

Voilà! A fascinating, seriously fun and uncontrived live show that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Totally Unicorn is an example par excellence for the fact that being technically gifted and musically spot on, the ability to effortlessly bring the party and defying stereotypes do not have to be mutually exclusive.

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Photos by T