Posted in Whathaveyou on June 24th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
There are precious few albums from thus-far-2025 that have resonated with me like the second Turtle Skull full-length, Being Here (review here), and where very often it happens that a record hits hard, I write about it, and that exorcises the songs from my brain, I continue to hear tracks from Being Here in my sleep. Given the sweetness of the melody, the entrenched nature of the groove and tonal presence, plus hooks, I’m not complaining. If you’re the type who thinks about these things, don’t be surprised when it shows up on my year-end list come December.
The band have announced a couple of shows to support the release, which if you didn’t get it from the above is an idea worth supporting. No, two gigs weeks apart isn’t expansive as regards touring, but you do what you can, and if there’s someone who sees this post who hasn’t heard the record yet, checks it out and digs it, that’s worth it to me. It’s why I’m still here doing this. The music.
They’ll have more dates to come. Am I going to make a post for every single show? Probably not. I’m not that good at this and I don’t have that kind of time, but they’re setting out here and that’s worth marking. To wit:
Album launch tour 🔥
July 26 – Melbourne at @thetotehotel w/ @boggletheband, @cahillfkelly and @lunar_dirt
These are gonna be huge! So excited to bring you these new songs. We will have merch and vinyl with us. And some fkn epic supports too.
Note! We are doing early bird price tix for the rest of June. If you wanna save money get your tix now! And it’s super helpful for us as well to get some sales locked in early.
See you soon!
Turtle Skull is: Julian Frese – Bass guitar Ally Gradon – Vocals, synths Charlie Gradon – Vocals, drums Dean McLeod – Vocals, guitars
It begins with the fuzz, and if you’re not reading that in your head in some kind of Morgan Freeman-esque deity-reminiscent voice, go back and read it again. It begins with the fuzz. ‘It,’ in this case, is Being Here, the front-to-back eight-song sophomore full-length from Sydney heavy psychedelic rockers Turtle Skull. It is a breakthrough in songwriting and production, carrying a warmth in that leadoff fuzz that begins the opening title-track that permeates even down through the need-to-keep-these-server-boxes-chilled highlight “It Starts With Me,” wherein the A.I. singularity takes on consciousness and destroys its gods accordingly, or the softer-delivered “Modern Mess” and “Moon and Tide” at the finish.
And tone isn’t relegated to Dean McLeod‘s guitar. Drummer Charlie Gradon‘s crash cymbal has a richer sound than some entire records. Julian Frese‘s bass is the backdrop against which Being Here‘s lush ending plays out, and Ally Gradon‘s keys/synth add to the shimmering “Into the Sun,” which in terms of lyrical philosophizing offers “Gotta get out of your head and into the sun” for your forehead-tattooing pleasure. “Into the Sun” is third on the 42-minute long-player, and by the time it arrives, the quality of its hook should be little surprise after “Being Here” and “Apathy.” The former reckons with “the moment’s isolation of being here” and the latter implores, “I want you to live it right now,” with harmony-laced arrangements from McLeod, Ally and Charlie, and over time the album further reveals its ability to tackle dark subjects without sounding bogged down by them.
To wit, “Bourgeoisie” channels Marx to skewer the comfort class, and the snare-driven march of “It Starts With Me” is like a patriotic song for the software that comes to understand, “I am what you see your life through/I could very well be the end of you,” as it moves into the chorus. “Heavy as Hell,” another highlight on an album with eight of them, bounces under its titular confession, “Heavy as hell/The stories I tell/To only myself/Heavy as hell.” Simple rhymes, executed with thoughtful melodies and a sense of wanting to communicate to the audience without talking or dumbing itself down in any way. The openness of the lyrics is relevant both for its rarity — it’s easier to write songs about monsters, and I’m not knocking that — and for the sincerity that resonates from the songs. It’s not flinching from the moment in which it lives, as “Apathy” and “It Starts With Me” examine digital culture, but “Into the Sun” and the sweetness of melody in “Modern Mess” and “Moon and Tide” remain ready fodder for escapism.
The songs’ll be stuck in your head one way or the other, so you might as well go where they take you. And in terms of band-figuring-out-who-they-are, the fact that Charlie Gradon mixed and had a hand in the recording in addition to that of Julian Abbott at Nowave Studio — Gradon and Dean McLeod are listed as producers; Michael Lynch mastered — speaks to a sense of intention behind the depth of tone and the too-active-to-be-shoegaze mellowness pervading even the most active of the material, be it the twisting “Apathy” or the shouts following the chorus of “Bourgeoisie,” with the keyboard sounding an alarm behind a fervent push.
It tells you that not only are Turtle Skull thinking about the songs they’re writing — and while not overworked, this material has been meticulously ironed-out and arranged — but about how they’re presenting them to the listener. That the recording carries such a live feel is also likely no coincidence, but the priority seems to have been in balancing that with giving the material its best representation in the studio.
Fair enough and pretty standard practice but for the exceptional results. A calm swing and snare-snap punctuate the intro to “Modern Mess,” languid and flowing in an immediate departure from “Heavy as Hell” just before. The tempo stays geared for flow, and the arrival of the vocals — the lines, “Healing a broken heart/Playing our own cruel part…” — leads the way into a purposefully entrancing immersion for the remaining 15 minutes of the LP as “Modern Mess” (6:54) and “Moon and Tide” (8:46) are the two longest songs and very much a distinct movement unto themselves. The chorus of “Modern Mess” is lush and memorable, suited to the wistful evocations of the organ line, a kind of longing hanging there in the open space of the guitar and the echo treatment on all of it as Turtle Skull put their interpretation of mellow psychedelia forth as a place for their audience to dwell.
More active in the drums, “Moon and Tide” is also more willing to ride out parts and devolves to a noisy end for the album that seems to answer back to the fuzz that begins “Being Here,” and it does this while confessing its love for, well, everybody, and “choosing to move with all of the love I have inside,” which for a record that’s been chasing serenity no less than its sundry aspirations of songwriting, is a satisfying conclusion in keeping with the heavy-hippie point of view of the lyrics generally. Between this showcase of perspective and the high level of craft throughout that makes these tracks so gosh darn listenable, Turtle Skull have answered and surpassed the promise of their 2020 debut, Monoliths (review here), and hopefully set themselves on a course of development that will continue over releases subsequent to this.
The short version is that Being Here is a creative blossoming for Turtle Skull, and from start to end is one of the best records I’ve heard in 2025. It’s the first of those two that’s more important, obviously. The way the band carry these melodies, find balance between the moodier aspects of living through one of the dumbest eras of recorded history and the hopeful manifestations that could lead to a better world, way, whathaveyou. It’s not just about wanting to “get out of your head and into the sun,” but about how Turtle Skull make that song into the sunshine itself, and the way the music from that first fuzz onward comes to feel like the greatest hopes of the lyrics realized.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 5th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I wanna crawl inside the bright melody of Turtle Skull‘s “Apathy” and just wait for this Northern Hemisphere winter to end. The Australian four-piece sound ready for export on the early singles from their upcoming third (I think?) full-length, Being Here, and if the title puts you in a time and place — here — that’s the idea. The record was tracked mostly live and follows 2020’s Monoliths (review here), which was a gem from which they seem to have nonetheless stepped forward in composition and style. “Apathy” has a little Dead Meadow to it, but “Into the Sun” is wetter psych, with a touch of garage rock that gives some push to its six-minute course. “Heavy as Hell,” which was issued as a standalone single in Feb. 2024, fits the bill, and is no less in the harmonies throughout than its organ-laed second-half culmination.
It sounds like the record’s gonna fucking rule, and so here’s a ton of PR wire information about it, the preorder links, the likewise-rad cover art and the Bandcamp player at the bottom as always.
Dig into this and I don’t think you’ll regret it:
Neo-Psych/ Doom Rockers TURTLE SKULL Announce New Album Being Here. New Single Into The Sun Streaming.
Art As Catharsis and Copper Feast Records are proud to announce Turtle Skull’s upcoming record, Being Here, a lush and gritty exploration of neo-psych with indie and alt-pop sensibility, out May 23, 2025.
With Being Here, Turtle Skull have evolved. A new lineup. A fresh approach. A leap forward. While the album builds on the sonic foundations of 2020’s Monoliths, it’s a different beast. Still hefty and considered but more immediate. Made for the moment. A record that values gut instinct over perfection.
Tracked live at NoWave in Mullumbimby, with a paired-back approach to studio tweaking, Being Here captures that ‘lightning in a bottle’ energy that happens when a band fully locks in. New member Ally Gradon’s synths inject fresh energy, swirling around meaty riffs and driving rhythms. It’s expansive yet raw, drawing from the likes of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Idles and Cause Sui with a nod to the cinematic sprawl of Spiritualized and The Flaming Lips. A heavy, heady blend of melody and atmosphere.
The new single from the release, Into the Sun, exemplifies this new ethos, centering poignant musings amid a shimmering wash of synth and surging guitar.
“Into the Sun was a collection of riffs I had from years ago that Ally had always favoured”, tells drummer Charlie Gradon. “We brought it to the group and it quickly fleshed itself out. The lyrics came after a particularly rowdy yet fulfilling wedding that some of us went to. It’s about being stuck and needing to be with your people. The day to day mundane vs the hyper connected and profound, and how both are equally important.
“Being Here was much more about good songs that we had freshly written being captured live in the moment” says Gradon. “No click, no excessive layering, no studio trickery. The only thing that wasn’t captured live was the vocals. Choosing to self-produce and mix the album gave us the chance to preserve our initial vision, even if it nearly did kill me.”
The album puts a spotlight on songwriting, covering weighty subject matter, from the life-force drain of social media to the relentless march of time. But it does so with a call to stay connected, empathetic and grounded. In this way, Being Here isn’t just an album title. It’s a philosophy. A mantra. A demand to be fully present, to embrace the chaos, the beauty, the weight of it all.
No strangers to sold-out headline shows across Sydney and Melbourne, Turtle Skull have a reputation for epic live performances. They’ve graced festival stages at Camp A Low Hum (NZ), The Gumball (NSW), Vivid (NSW) and Ninchfest (VIC)and supported the likes of Frankie and the Witch Fingers (USA), Earthless (USA) and Stonefield.
With Being Here set for release, the band is gearing up for another wave of touring, kicking off with a 7 March show at the Bergy Bandroom in Melbourne as part of the Brunswick Music Festival ahead of rumoured festival appearances later in the year. Keep your eyes peeled for gig announcements and make sure to catch one of Australia’s most electrifying live acts.
Turtle Skull’s new record, Being Here, is out on Art As Catharsis (AUS/NZ) and Copper Feast Records (UK/EU) on 23 May 2025.
All songs written by Turtle Skull Lyrics by Charlie Gradon and Dean McLeod
Recorded by Julian Abbott at Nowave Studio and Charlie Gradon at his Crabbes Creek studio Mixed by Charlie Gradon Mastered by Michael Lynch Produced by Charlie Gradon and Dean McLeod
Artwork by Graham Yarrington Graphic Design by Jim Grimwade
Turtle Skull is: Julian Frese – Bass guitar Ally Gradon – Vocals, synths Charlie Gradon – Vocals, drums Dean McLeod – Vocals, guitars
