It was no surprise that Euro-busker Joe Algeri was standing at the door with his trusty guitar as I walked into The Loft on this night. Heck, some would say that Superscope are fundamentally the remnants of his old backing band The Stonemasons, but I forthrightly disagree with this stylistic pop-snobbery after seeing this, the launch of Superscope’s debut CD Generally Electric.
Yes, Diamond Joe did jump up in a pre-Superscope, post-Stonemasons’ tribute with ex-fellow guitarist Kevin Borruso to start the event, but as Joe left the stage to make way for bass-player Derren Murphy and drummer Shane Bolton the amps were set to squeal in an extreme shift away from Borruso’s Stonemasonry roots.
There was no question that Superscope had a big sound. Here were a trio of hard-hitting musicians who took the goody-goody Perth power pop harmonies and simplistic chord progressions and gave them a thorough toasting; bending notes and inserting an off-key in all the right places to herald the contemporary Perth pop re-birth without the fluoro-pink gloss and without the pretty guitar jangle.
Careering off with Window and Hate Me, while jumping back and tuning the amps to squeal that little bit more, Superscope had the Loft crowd bouncing from dot. Showing that they aren’t going to rest on their laurels, even though this was their debut CD launch, new material tossed Murphy’s voice into the fray as he took over the lead vocal duties. In fact, Murphy’s chunky bass sound, lanky falling-over and bass-on-knees charisma shows that Superscope is not just another solo springboard for a talented frontman like Borruso.
The pace failed to let up through the whole set, demanding me to sing loud and long for Superscope. Too often the mid-tempo, guitar-based croon imposes on a great set but here there was none of that. Their final song before encores, Replace, was an absolute scorcher which forces me to compare Superscope favourably to Header, their contemporaries with a slight head start, but not for long on the strength of this performance and CD release.
Adam Connors
