Totally Mild - Down Time (2015)

It’s a new year and time for a new sound. Forget everything you heard about the Melbourne ‘dolewave’, what a crock of shit. We have found something much more important for you to listen to.

Totally Mild are a four-piece based in Melbourne, Australia. Fronted by Elizabeth Mitchell, a woman with an exciting tendency to sing in a falsetto not many can match, the band perform absolutely perfect, skewed, disjointed pop music that sounds as though it was handed down from the heavens.

Zachary Schneider (Full Ugly, The Great Outdoors) follows close behind on lead guitar, his lines interlocking with Mitchell’s to form a structural frame. This is matched by Lehmann Smith (Kes Band) and Ashley Bundang’s rhythm section, an enigma in itself. The playing is sparse, accentuation perfect. The end result has got us wetting our pants.

Since developing out of Mitchell’s solo project of the same name, Totally Mild have put Melbourne into a spin. They perform to fans who know the words to every song, and have been singled out to support the likes of Real Estate, Laura Jean and The Harpoons.

The band also have an armament of Australia’s finest talent behind them, with album artwork courtesy of Darren Sylvester, and music videos produced by Geoffrey O’Connor, Xanthe Dobbie and Nina Renee.

Down Time will be Totally Mild’s full-length debut, and is sure to rock the metaphorical boat of Australian music. This is one we’ve been excited about since first listen, and couldn’t press more strongly upon you. Close your eyes and listen to those harmonies! Oh bliss! Oh ecstasy! Oh joy!