{"id":544887,"date":"2026-07-26T14:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T14:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544887\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T14:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T14:20:25","slug":"swapmeet-frost-children-album-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544887\/","title":{"rendered":"Swapmeet, Frost Children album reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Swapmeet, Mount Zero<\/p>\n

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\"MountMount Zero by Swapmeet: a remarkably focused debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cMount Zero is a place you pass but never go,\u201d Swapmeet\u2019s Maxwell Elphick says of the mountain that looms as the northernmost point of the Grampians.<\/p>\n

The band would pass by the cryptically named mountain again and again while journeying from their hometown of Adelaide to Melbourne to play gigs.<\/p>\n

These long, empty road trips have become part of the much-hyped indie rock group\u2019s mythology \u2013 their first-ever show in Wollongong was packed full of devoted Adelaideans who\u2019d made the trip across the border in support.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s appropriate, then, that their debut album stretches and turns like one of these trips. There\u2019s the propulsive thud of single and opener I Know!, the messy dirge of Seeds and the breeziness of standout Sand, while smatterings of horns and shrieking guitars slap exclamation marks on Personal (Don\u2019t Take it) and Halfway.<\/p>\n

\"LocalLocal breakout indie-rockers Swapmeet.Josh Sabini<\/p>\n

Band members Maxwell Elphick, Venus O\u2019Broin, Jack Medlyn and Josh Doherty swap instruments and vocals throughout the album, which they pieced together in a Port Noarlunga pad that had a ping-pong table overlooking the ocean.<\/p>\n

Despite the musical chairs, Mount Zero is a remarkably focused and even debut album, with its icy atmosphere recalling \u201990s alt-rock \u2013 and a solitary drive on an empty highway. Jules LeFevre<\/p>\n

Frost Children, Tweaker Poem<\/p>\n

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\"TweakerTweaker Poem by Frost Children: anthemic EDM at its serrated best.<\/p>\n

NYC-via-Midwest sibling duo Lulu and Angel Prost have seen their star rise exponentially since last year\u2019s Sister, their sixth album in as many years, and their production work with the likes of Kim Petras and Ninajirachi. With that increasing profile has come a major label record deal and unwanted attention of the parasocial kind.<\/p>\n

Following an encounter with an overzealous fan (the EP\u2019s eponymous \u201ctweaker\u201d), the duo fled New York and decamped to Tokyo, where \u2013 jet-lagged and sleep-deprived \u2013 they recorded this EP inspired by the entire ordeal. In songs that quote Madonna\u2019s stalker Robert Dewey Hoskins and Rhonda Saunders\u2019 book Whisper of Fear: the True Story of the Prosecutor Who Stalks the Stalkers, the pair scrutinise the encounter with emotional detail.<\/p>\n

The result, somehow, isn\u2019t dark or dour but life-affirming and warm, veering away from the brash indie sleaze they\u2019re known for and further towards the pop aspirations and melodic melancholy that marked the best parts of Sister.<\/p>\n

\"SiblingSibling duo Lulu and Angel Prost are Frost Children.<\/p>\n

Satellites and Light Leak match their hyperpop experimentalism with the sort of chart-topping emo-EDM that poured out of dorm rooms in the mid-2010s (think the Chainsmokers, Zedd, et al.), while the sparkling synths and serrated choruses of Creep and Afterlife lie somewhere between Dance Dance Revolution and Midwest emo.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find yourself euphorically chanting \u201cWe never die, ain\u2019t no cyanide!\u201d over a frantic gabber beat like it\u2019s a mantra. Robert Moran<\/p>\n

To read more from Spectrum, visit our page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get the day\u2019s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"RobertRobert Moran<\/a> is Spectrum deputy editor at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-544887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}