Listening to The Growl’s colossal sound – built up in layers of percussion, with guitar tones one music critic aptly described as leaving the taste of iron on your tongue – it is hard to believe the band began as simply as a bedroom recording project between two friends. Seeing them live, as a six‐ piece dual‐drummer wall of sound, more so. And while the core of the band is still founding members front‐man Cameron Avery and bassist Clinton Oliver, it is safe to say the band has come a very long way in a very short time. In December last year the band locked themselves and a stack of old recording gear into a derelict and deserted loft above the streets of Perth city. With the roof literally coming down around them they set about recording their debut album. Eight months later the first single is ready to be released. Confusingly titled Cleaver Lever,the same name as their debut EP, the track embodies the evolution of The Growl’s sound.
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Self‐recorded and produced, Cleaver Lever is a worthy addition to a stunning body of work emanating from the current pool of musicians in the West Australian city of Fremantle. With Cameron Avery’s other band Pond (in which he plays drums) having recently released their new album to a stunning reception across Europe and the US, and with Tame Impala doing all of the amazing things they are doing, the Fremantle music scene has produced some of the most interesting and imaginative music of the last few years ‐ and that’s just looking at the bands the world outside of Australia knows about.
Back at home, The Growl have had a fairly speedy rise to prominence. In addition to being Unearthed by Australian Radio Station Triple J for the Big Day Out in 2012, The Growl found a very strong grassroots following upon debuting as a live act in 2010. Community radio loved them, other bands loved them, and within a year The Growl were capable of selling out big shows to an increasingly diverse audience. The band began touring Australia, and the more they played live the more intense and abstract the live performance became, which in turn continued to shape and expand the band’s songwriting, musical capabilities and personnel. Cleaver Lever is a significant event in this continuing evolution of the band. Intense and sideways, but also so familiar and beautiful‐sounding, Cleaver Lever is a lot of different things rolled into one... and while journalists often find themselves describing The Growl in vivid and colourful language, the common consensus is always that there is just something inexplicable and magical to what this band can do.
