Our first show at Altar, eighteen months late
Old Haunts had been out for a year and a half before we played a note of it in front of anyone.
There was no grand reason for that. Five people, no vocals, and a post-rock record that took as long as it took. By the time it was finished, the idea of standing on a stage and doing it again in one pass was something we kept agreeing to think about later. Eventually later ran out.
Altar is a good room to stop stalling in. It sits at the bottom of In The Hanging Garden on Murray Street, and it is not precious about genre. Stephen O’Malley and Marco Fusinato have played it, Striborg, Author & Punisher, Psycroptic from just up the road. It takes the heavier touring circuit through too: Thornhill, In Hearts Wake, Void of Vision, Blood Incantation, King Parrot, Obscura. Luca Brasi played it in December 2022, which for this band is less a fun fact than a family tree. For a Hobart venue to hold that range and still put an instrumental post-rock band’s first-ever set on the bill says most of what needs saying about the room.
Wagaan opened, and Sam McMeekin played before us. Both of them made the night feel less like a stunt and more like a gig.
A couple of hundred people came. The set was the record, more or less in order. Nobody talks between songs in this band. We tried it once in a rehearsal room and it was worse, so it ran as one long thing with the lights doing the punctuation. The quiet parts were the test. A room like that can swallow them or it can lean in, and this one leaned in.
Backseat Mafia came along and wrote it up, which was generous of them given it was the first time we’d ever done it. Andrew Fuller called it “a truly amazing feat”. We’ll take it.
Old Haunts is out now, streaming everywhere, and on Bandcamp if you want to hold it.
Photos by JS Imagery.
Since this was written, we came back to the same stage on 7 November 2025, opening for Australian post-rock band We Lost The Sea on the A Single Flower Australian tour, presented by Select Music and Bird’s Robe. Backseat Mafia reviewed that one too.
