It can take time for Aus­tralian bands to make their mark in the UK. Sons of the East, con­sist­ing of Syd­neysiders Dan Wal­lage, Nic John­ston and Jack Rollins, cer­tain­ly deserve to be more well known than they are right now so hope­ful­ly their new album Palo­mar Parade will do it for them. On a world­wide scale, they’ve racked up an impres­sive 300 mil­lion streams, tour­ing exten­sive­ly across the globe sell­ing over 30,000 head­line tick­ets and per­form­ing to an esti­mat­ed 100,000+ peo­ple to date. 

Palo­mar Parade is their debut album. Although Sons of the East have been togeth­er for a few years, they’ve not got round to putting a whole album out until now. Say the band about this crop of songs, “Palo­mar Parade is all of our favourite songs writ­ten over the last two years. Some came to us in a day, some came to us over the course of a year, but all of them shone in the some­times-bru­tal process of mak­ing a record.”

The album’s name – Palo­mar Parade – is the name of the Syd­ney-based stu­dio where the boys record­ed most of the tracks, in between cof­fee breaks and checks on the surf sit­u­a­tion. Style wise, Sons of the East draw on folk and coun­try tra­di­tions, mixed with blues. Their mate­r­i­al exudes warmth and a pas­sion­ate love for their craft. Their vocals are rich, emo­tive and tex­tured, the instru­men­ta­tion is envelop­ing and per­fect­ly balanced.

Palo­mar Parade’s soul­ful open­er Hard Play­ing Hard to Get has a dis­tinc­tive feel of the late J J Cale around the vocal deliv­ery – and the lyrics too – and that’s nev­er a bad thing. Sec­ond track You Might Think is anoth­er beau­ty. This intro­spec­tive, shoegazey bal­lad, which reminds me of The War on Drugs is pro­pelled along by its dri­ving beat and whis­pery harmonies. 

Anoth­er Night is set to be anoth­er rous­ing num­ber played live, with uplift­ing ban­jo and piano instru­men­ta­tion adding euphor­ic foot-stomp­ing joy. No One To Blame is a lush coun­try-infused bal­lad which makes full use of the band’s skil­ful har­monies on the cho­rus. The way the album switch­es styles as it moves along through all twelve tracks makes for a well-round­ed listen. 

Sons of the East are tour­ing the US through Octo­ber and Novem­ber. Palo­mar Parade is avail­able now
Tick­ets and info at www.sonsoftheeast.com ;  YouTube | Face­book | Twit­ter