Melbourne band Fancy Weapon, featuring members drawn from several generations of Australian underground music, have released third single “27 Minutes” as the group prepares for its debut album and a run of high profile live appearances.
by Paul Cashmere
Fancy Weapon have unveiled “27 Minutes”, the third single and accompanying video from the Melbourne group’s forthcoming self titled debut album, arriving June 19 through Poison City. The release comes as the band shares stages this week with Mogwai and Tortoise in Melbourne and ahead of its official album launch at The Tote on July 4.
The new track follows earlier singles “Squid” and “Squirmin’ Merman”, extending the first public chapter of a project that has quickly become a point of interest within Australia’s independent music community. While Fancy Weapon is technically a new band, its members arrive with decades of history behind them, bringing together musicians whose work has shaped alternative and underground scenes across Melbourne, Sydney, Seattle and beyond.
For listeners with long memories of Australian independent music, the significance lies in the convergence of several musical lineages. Guitarist Mick Turner helped establish a distinct language through Dirty Three and earlier groups such as Venom P Stinger and Sick Things. Joel Silbersher remains a defining figure from Melbourne’s guitar underground through GOD and Hoss, while Guy Maddison’s path runs from Perth punk through Lubricated Goat and into a 25 year tenure with Seattle’s Mudhoney. Claire Birchall’s work stretches from Geelong’s DIY community to Paper Planes and Kim Salmon’s Smoked Salmon.
The result appears less like a conventional supergroup and more like an intersection of separate musical histories.
The album itself carries an unusual backstory. Fancy Weapon recorded the project during a single session at Finn Keane’s Head Gap Studios in Preston in late 2024. The session took place before the band had played a public show and only days before the studio was destroyed after a neighbouring business was allegedly targeted in a criminal arson attack.
The recordings survived.
Subsequent mixing sessions continued under the Head Gap name at another location, allowing Keane and the band to complete the project. Keane engineered the album and also co-produced it alongside Fancy Weapon.
That compressed recording process may explain some of the directness that emerges from the material. According to information accompanying the release, the record was largely captured before the band had time to overthink or refine its identity through extensive live performance. Instead, it documented a chemistry that had developed almost immediately.
Vocally, the album splits lead duties between Silbersher and Birchall, with shared harmonies and one duet also included. Instrumentally, the combination of Turner and Silbersher places two highly distinctive guitar players in close conversation. Their approaches have historically occupied different territories, Turner’s textured and atmospheric style meeting Silbersher’s more forceful and angular attack.
The rhythm section is similarly unconventional. Birchall, known largely for vocals, guitar and keyboards elsewhere, moves into the drummer’s role, while Maddison anchors the material on bass.
The emergence of Fancy Weapon also reflects a broader trend in Australian independent music, where established artists increasingly continue creating ambitious new projects rather than treating legacy acts as endpoints. The members of Fancy Weapon remain active across multiple bands and recording projects, an approach that has long characterised Melbourne’s music ecosystem.
That longevity has increasingly become part of the story itself. Independent music scenes in Australia have often relied on sustained collaboration rather than short cycles of commercial visibility. Fancy Weapon appears to operate within that tradition, with musicians crossing between projects over decades rather than remaining fixed to a single identity.
The band’s early live performances have already included appearances alongside acts such as The Beasts, Penny Ikinger and Toody Cole of Dead Moon. The recent support slots with Mogwai and Tortoise place Fancy Weapon in another context again, linking their guitar driven material with artists associated with post-rock and experimental music traditions.
With a debut album now imminent, the release of “27 Minutes” functions as another step in introducing a band still defining itself publicly. The project may be new, but the musicians involved have spent much of their careers building the paths that eventually brought them together.
July 4, Melbourne, The Tote
Ticketing details: Tickets for the album launch are available via Oztix.
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