Trial Kennedy

The infamous American composer Warren Benson once said that "music lives in three tenses at once. Developing what comes before it in the past, it engages us in the present, and inspires our hopes for the future."

When negotiating the process of creating an album, this quote hits the nail directly on the head. However, the final part of the quote referring to the "future" only applies to a very few select records, the records which send shivers down your spine and exist as a journey of eternal new discoveries. Enter Melbourne based rock quartet Trial Kennedy, whose debut album 'New Manic Art' is an inspiration full of hope for Australia's music future.

"We had pretty much the whole album written before we entered the studio, we wanted to be as prepared as possible - I mean recording with someone like Nick Didia in Atlanta is a huge deal and we wanted to be as ready as possible for that. I know there are a lot of bands who don't go in that prepared, and that's fine, we love improvisation with music, and we still improvised on the album as well, like a lot of the guitar parts and overdubs which Stacey [Gray, guitarist] recorded definitely had that kind of spur-of-the-moment creativity, same with some vocal parts. But yeah, being a first album with budgets and time constraints, it was definitely a necessity to be ready to go, and we tracked the drums and bass in only four days!" vocalist Tim Morrison explains.

As previously stated, 'New Manic Art' was recorded in Atlanta with notorious producer Nick Didia, whose resume includes Stone Temple Pilots, Incubus and Powderfinger. When recollecting the recording process, both Gray and Morrison agreed that the experience was one of the most comfortable and astonishing experiences they have ever encountered.

"It was out of our comfort zone, but then again it was so comfortable." Gray says, "America is a big place, the big smoke, Nick Didia; it's all a little overwhelming. But Nick made us feel so comfortable with barbeques every morning, just incredible southern hospitality, it was really like Melbourne. It was a total credit to Nick because he understood that we had never toured anywhere but Australia, but yeah he was amazing, he took us to baseball games, ice hockey games, got us tickets to see Bjork and introduced us all to his family, he is a friend for life and we would definitely use him again."

Morrison agrees: "It was just as homely as being home, and it definitely got the best out of us. We ended up being really close to his family; his three year old daughter does some guest vocals on Colour Day Tours. Like, it doesn't get much more relaxing as that. He did push us, but it wasn't aggressive at all, very positive. And he totally got us, like we wanted an organic sounding album, it has some little imperfections but that's what we wanted, there wasn't auto-tuning - it was really such a privilege working with him."

The album perfectly showcases Trial Kennedy's progression since their earlier EPs and also their incredible talent for writing catchy melodic rock songs. From opener Sunday Warning to the atmospheric and stunningly beautiful closer Mississippi Burn, the LP is overflowing with tracks which have the ability to become singles, especially with Morrison's breath-taking vocals and Gray's intricate guitar work. The Great Escape, Neighbours and Colour Day Tours are three singles so far from the record which have already received well deserved radio and video play, the latter two incorporating animated aspects similar to the remarkable artwork included in the CD package.

"The artwork is very similar to the 'Where's Wally' books in a way, you open it up and it's just the huge page of just awesome animated random images, but all of them represent a story. So there is like one large picture which represents a fairyland with each smaller picture representing a track on the record. It really went way past all our expectations." Morrison enthuses.

Gray then adds, "it's so incredible, it's like one of those pieces of art that no matter how long you look at it, every time you look at it again you will notice something new that you haven't before. That's the kind of artwork and music we love."

Will Oakeshott

'New Manic Art' is out now through Sony/ BMG.