New release : DATURA4 "Invisible Hits"
Following on from the release of their fifth album, ‘Neanderthal Jam’, West Australian boogie masters DATURA4 are back with ‘Invisible Hits’, an album collecting unreleased out-takes and selected tracks that were not previously available on vinyl. This superb collection of brilliantly crafted songs is only available on LIMITED CLEAR BLUE VINYL, and will delight fans of the band and newcomers alike.
There are those that say rock is long dead. On the evidence here don’t believe it. – HARMONIC DISTORTION
- June 1 @ Beat the Blues @ Stirling Arms Hotel — Guilford, AU
- June 22 @ Charles Hotel @ Rockin’ Blues and Boogie Power — North Perth, AU
- June 29 @ Gatsby’s Skyline — Manjimup, AU
The band is rooted in a purist form of blues rock which will positively resonate with any fan of the '70s gritty hard & heavy rock genre. Their current studio album release does not fall short, inspiring everyone from the modern day stoner, to the aficionado of classic-era hard blues rock goodness. – Tone Scott / GOLDMINE
DATURA4 "Going Back To Hoonsville" : Datura4 stalk a darker, dirtier species of psychedelic boogie than their fellow cool West Australia types (Tame Impala, Pond..), and their latest single stirs Jim Jones-esque nastiness into a hypnotic, head-pounding shuffle – featuring Aussie bluesman/slide guitar star David Hole. – Polly Glass / CLASSIC ROCK here
The Western Australian natives always mind their trad rock and blues roots with a modern heft and sensibility when it comes to stone grooves and spaced licks. – GHOST CULT MAGAZINE
The feedback and slide-drenched boogie of "Going Back To Hoonsville" is as catchy as COVID, neanderthally heavy, and as relentless as a desert highway car chase. – X-PRESS MAGAZINE
DATURA4 “Open The Line” : The West Australian psych-groovers lay down a luscious cosmic boogie, all Hammond organ, loose-hipped Summer of Love warmth and fresh off their upcoming album Neanderthal Jam. Full-tilt retro fun, it bounces along like a hippie hitchhiker after a really good night’s sleep, seems to finish…and then trips out for another half a minute or so of freakdom. Impossible to listen and not think of blue skies and hot, hot sunshine. – Polly Glass / CLASSIC ROCK / LOUDER
Australian rock act Datura4 are psychedelic, bluesy and surging on their new single “Open The Line” which is part of their upcoming album Neanderthal Jam, which is slated for release in August. The message, as the band states, is simple – “Love is the only answer.” – Anurag Tagat / ROLLING STONE INDIA
"WEST COAST HIGHWAY COSMIC" :
West Coast Highway Cosmic has everything I love
If you were lucky enough to grow up in the 60s and 70s, you know that the music coming out at that time had a certain vibe. We’re not talking about the bubble-gum pop that was prevalent on the AM stations of the day. This is that blues based, uber-overdriven, gritty sound that blasted on many a stereo. Australian rockers Datura4 have captured not just the sound, but that whole atmospheric ambience on their latest release, West Coast Highway Cosmic. – AMERICAN BLUES SCENE
You could say that Australian quartet Datura4 play highway rock, stoner metal, chill doom or downer chug, and you’d be right on all fronts, the band striking that perfect spot between overdriven and stripped down. Mother Medusa brings all sand-scattered windows-down attitude you could ask for, featuring an awesome central riff, some cardboard-ish opening toms, and a writhing harmonized solo in the middle that sounds like the hair of the song’s namesake. – KERRANG!
West Coast Highway Cosmic is straight ahead, smart rock. Pure and simple. – SPILL MAGAZINE
Datura4 are on a first-rate, four-album roll here – blessed with Dom’s honest, earthy DNA and with a little “patience” thrown in to broaden their sound. Cosmic, indeed….stellar, even. – GET READY TO ROCK
here’s no denying the “cosmic” psychedelic threads running through everything. There are no weighty concepts at work, but lots of heavy playing on a batch of songs that go down easy. Datura4 should pump up the volume at any party whose participants are either over 60 or just love the music of the era known for black lights, skin tight trousers, beards and waist long hair.
Push play and let it rip. – AMERICAN SONGWRITER
RULE MY WORLD : You might recognize Dom Mariani as the frontman of Aussie garage rockers The Stems, or 90s power-pop group DM3. Either way, he’s got form on the songwriting front, which translates beautifully into his new record with Datura4. This latest single – a filthy yet brightly melodic swirl of woozy 12-bar blues and stompy psychedelia – harks particularly strongly back to his bluesy, full-tilt boogie roots. – CLASSIC ROCK / LOUDER
The set’s biggest surprise is its final cut, “Evil People, Pt. 1.” Though under six minutes it feels like a jam track with serpentine organ, throbbing bass, and martial tom-toms overlaid with distorted guitars in a three-chord vamp that creates a hypnotic, head-wagging pulse as Mariani sings with malevolence at the heart of the mix. His six-string duels with Patient‘s Hammond B-3 for dominance as the music melts together in a punishing swirl that brings West Coast Highway Cosmic to an overloaded boil of blasted psych blues. This aptly titled set is perfect for driving fast on long, lonely stretches of highway with the windows down and the wide-open night for company. – Thom Jurek / ALL MUSIC
The band’s ethos remains true to its early ‘70s sonic ambitions. D4 is harking back but also looking forward with another choice crop of well-crafted songs. – I-94 BAR
There are those that say rock is long dead. On the evidence here don’t believe it. – HARMONIC DISTORTION
The title cut from Australian garage rock/psych rock outfit Datura4’s latest LP, West Coast Highway Cosmic, is the dash-pounding, air keyboard, rocking freakout this generation has long needed but was too afraid to ask for. Built on sturdy rhythms, lysergic twists and turns, and a vocal hook that won’t soon leave you, this is the best of its kind since Deep Purple’s ‘Highway Star.’ – Jedd Beaudoin / POPMATTERS
A blues-based pavement-shredder that flexes significant muscle while nodding to forefathers like ZZ Top and John Lee Hooker and even Stevie Wonder.– GHETTOBLASTER
Everything about Datura4 screams “throwback”. The album covers they have, the sound, but there’s something else too. Their work ethic.
It always strikes me when you read those histories of rock n roll and so forth, an album a year was normal, a couple in a year wasn’t unheard of either.
Datura4 are bringing it back. “West Coast Highway Cosmic” Is the fourth album from the Western Australian mob in five years, and if broadly speaking, it comes from the same place, there are some subtle differences this time around. – MAXIMUM VOLUME
The band is fronted by Australian Dom Mariani a man with quite a long list of former and current bands like DM3 and The Stems. With this album, like its predecessor, the band claims the territory of 70’s boogie, citing Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Beatles as heroes. So, much choogling, interesting arrangements and melodic rock driven songs, lending itself well to an open road with the car stereo turned up loud. – TERRASCOPE
Impressive and power pop with the melodies and roots that belong in the garage without it tucking up the MC5 or Birdman. – RPM ONLINE
West Coast Highway Cosmic is about travel, whether that’s on highways, via astral teleportation or anything in between. It’s a ride from start to finish and worth taking multiple times. And, while it might take you in a different direction each time you listen, West Coast Highway Cosmic will never give you a bad trip. It’s pure goodness. – AROUND THE SOUND
With its fuzzy blues-rock riff dipped in psychedelia, “You Be the Fool” sounds like “Roadhouse Blues” covered by Count Five. Reliable set pieces from the classic rock canon in unexpected variations make the song feel at once fresh and familiar. – THE VINYL DISTRICT
For a band that is more than capable of piling on layers of noise and shredding, “You’re The Only One” takes a more restrained approach with subtle use of slide guitar and eerie, reverb-soaked harmonica playing. Though it is clearly a love song, the instrumentation and vocals give this tune a sparse, rambling road-tune vibe. – GLIDE MAGAZINE
"BLESSED IS THE BOOGIE" :
Garagey but not grungey, power-poppy but not cheesy, muddy but not sludgy, blues-respecting but not formulaic, trippy but not spacey, Datura4 is carving out their own niche and clearly incorporate their many influences but, refreshingly, keep them as just that – influences which contribute to the greater Datura4 sound. – GET READY TO ROCK (★★★★ 4 stars review)
Blessed Is the Boogie certainly wears the group’s debt to John Lee Hooker and other boogie masters proudly on its sleeve. But tracks such as “Not For Me” and “Cat on a Roof” are more expansive and compositionally ambitious, while the acoustic-flavored “City of Lights” hews toward some of Mariani’s power-pop background. – BILLBOARD
ROLLING STONE (FR)
"HAIRY MOUNTAIN" PRESS :
And the award for the best album title of the year goes to……
In the summer of last year, some Mp3s arrived at MV Towers from the Alive Naturalsound stable. Like when you were a kid you always knew that the red and white Atlantic spine was the mark of a great record, then reviewing as we do now, you always think “oh this might be cool” when it comes from certain labels.
This was from a band called Datura4, who had emerged from Aussie pop heroes DM3 and featured members of You Am I (a band who we’d loved back at the turn of the century) Datura4 dealt in classic rock and the album was a triumph. MV waxed lyrical on the subject and as well as calling “Demon Blues” amongst other things “spectacular”, we said it was “kind of a cross between chilled out Psych rock, blues and fuzzy 1960s garage rock n roll.
Now, perhaps in the spirit of those classic rock forefathers, just over 12 months later comes “Hairy Mountain” and, it too is a triumph.
One that sort of belongs to the same hinterland as the debut, certainly the fuzzy bliss of opener “Fools Gold Rush” and the knowing 60s harmonies of the verse are a suggestion that this is another labour of love. That said “….Mountain” does move things into a more modern arena this time around. – MAXIMUM VOLUME MUSIC
Australian rock often seems confined to a few monster names, but the country still boasts a thriving scene that, as Datura4’s follow-up to 2015’s Demon Blues debut clearly shows, has a firm grasp on garage psych and progressive blues rock. – CLASSIC ROCK
With a fairly unique blend of ganja-grooves and big, retro-vocals, Datura4 have duxed it again with “Hairy Mountain” – they may be from beyond the Black Stump, but this album is ripper. Fire up the mull and tell me I’m wrong. – GET READY TO ROCK
Builds in true '70s psych-rock form, swirling from guitar-led turmoil to shoegaze clearings of reflection. – ROLLING STONE AU
With 10 solid tracks of lager guided melodies and balls out Rock ‘n’ Roll they have come to party like its 1969, evoking the spirit of bad-ass biker bar boogie bands with the swagger of Blue Cheer, The James Gang, The Allman Brothers and their Southern brethren. Following the critically acclaimed debut LP Demon Blues, Datura4 have fine-tuned their heads-down, no nonsense, timeless boogie and by adding a stronger element of Psych Blues to a natural flair for melody, their new album, Hairy Mountain, shows that this band are the real deal. – STRANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING
Datura4 has learned the first lesson of blues rock, if you’ve got a killer guitar tone, you’ve already taken the high ground. – GLACIALLY MUSICAL
"DEMON BLUES" PRESS :
Elements of hard-lined blues remain evident, but are primarily smoothed out by a dominant, free-formed ’70s psych sparsity. Those sprawling soundscapes themselves threaten explosive outbreaks yet are reigned in further with a defining boogie, a heavy footstomp of swagger that sets a more contemporary course. – Johnny Nail / ROLLING STONE AU
As with pretty much anything else Mariani explores, he succeeds handily here – his sense of melody never deserts him, regardless of setting. It may not be the DM3, but Datura4 is just as true an expression of Mariani’s musical will as anything he’s ever done. – Michael Toland /BLURT
Out With The Tide is a thundering chunk of Antipodean boogie-sleaze, and rocks like a pair of possums on a see-saw.– CLASSIC ROCK
A great find for Alive Naturalsound, and a better one for you. Find ‘em, fool ‘em, but don’t Forget ‘em. – DaveDiMartino
Killer vintage rock. – GLACIALLY MUSICAL
A superb album, Datura4 manage to be even greater than the sum of their parts. – MAXIMUM VOLUME MUSIC (9/10 RATING)
Unlike a lot of bands with a taste for vintage heavy sounds, Datura4 also know when to apply a light touch, and the greasy slink of "Another Planet" and the stretched-out jamming on "Love to Burn" are the work of a band that's learned something about dynamics, with players who can turn it up or dial it back as the circumstances dictate. – ALL MUSIC
Datura4 reunites two of the West Australian underground scene’s favourite sons in Dom Mariani (Stems, DM3) and Greg Hitchcock (You Am I, The Kryptonics, The Monarchs, The Bamboos, the New Christs.) Bandmates in the Go-Starts in their formative years, they’re working together to indulge a mutual love of hard ‘n’ heavy classic rock.
They’ve been around since 2008 but “Demon Blues” is Datura4’s debut and if you’re a fan of Buffalo, late-period Masters Apprentices (when they got proggy) or the venerable Lobby Loyde and his boogiefied Colored Balls it’ll grab you like a Torana driver’s handshake in the days before power steering. “Demon Blues” is ‘very 70s rock. There are saturated and overdriven guitars all over these 10 songs like a rash on a Led Zeppelin groupie.
There’s also a deftness and pop sensibility in the undertow. It’s a happy marriage of the hard-edged and the hooky. – The Barman / I-94 BAR (4.5/5 RATING)
Amazing stuff.. This will be on my list of top records for 2015 for sure... – WRITING ABOUT MUSIC
If you like fuzzed-out 70s guitar rock, it's pretty safe to say that you'll love this album. – GARY SCHWIND / AXS Entertainment (5/5 rating)
