There was something almost painful in the perfect delivery of Bleak Squad’s live performance last night at The Factory Theatre—exquisite, ragged and full of longing. Live performance always carries an inherent risk, especially when a band leans into improvisation: the delicate balance between restraint and release, the possibility that a wandering guitar line might lead to unraveling. But tonight, it lifted into something transcendent and unrepeatable.
The setlist for Bleak Squad’s headline show delivered a focused, immersive journey through their debut album Strange Love (released in 2025 on Poison City Records). It blended the record’s brooding noir-rock core with dynamic builds and a poignant nod to Australian underground history.
Bleak Squad unites four key figures from distinct yet interconnected strands of Australian underground and alternative music, creating a supergroup that draws on decades of shared influences from Melbourne’s rich post-punk, indie, and art-rock scenes. Mick Harvey anchors the project with his foundational role in the explosive early-1980s post-punk era through The Birthday Party (with Nick Cave) and his long tenure in Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Adalita Srsen brings the visceral energy of alt-rock via Magic Dirt. Mick Turner contributes his distinctive guitar work from Dirty Three. Marty Brown, who initiated the band, comes from the introspective indie-folk/rock side via Art of Fighting. Together, these “families” converge in Bleak Squad’s cohesive sound.
The opening with Strange Love felt like a deliberate invocation—stately and measured, establishing the night’s tempo right from the first notes. The track unfolded with deliberate restraint: sparse, brooding guitars, Harvey’s steady bass anchoring the low end, Brown’s lyrical drumming keeping things tight yet unhurried, and Adalita’s assured vocals easing in over a gentle, almost bossa-nova-tinged sway. It was a slow burn from the start—tension coiled in the space between instruments, the arrangements open-ended and expansive. Yet that very composure hinted at the band’s latent power—they could (and later did) swell into the loudest, heaviest moments reminiscent of the Bad Seeds or Crime and the City Solution. Bleak Squad, like these bands, is profoundly artist-driven and theatrical in the truest sense—prioritizing mood, vocal narrative, and unfiltered individual expression over polished hooks or conventional song structures.
At the heart of this theatricality is Adalita, with her bright red Gibson SG—her vocals commanding yet vulnerable, carrying a wide, assured range that weaves serpentine melodies and soaring emotional arcs.
Mick Harvey was visibly enjoying himself on stage, serving as the steady, multi-instrumental presence—laying down anchoring basslines, subtle keyboard drones, and his signature deadpan vocal anchors in Bad Humour Man and Cover Me in Roses—that held Bleak Squad’s sound together with quiet authority. He was ever the wry steward of the evening, reminding the band—and by extension the rapt audience—that yes, there was a crowd present and the show must go on, underscoring his role as the presiding force over Bleak Squad’s unapologetic art-for-art’s-sake ethos.
The near-full-album run included Safe as Houses, Suitcase in Berlin, Everything Must Change, World Go to Hell, and more. Let Go of Love highlighted Marty Brown’s subtle piano/keyboard contributions—on the album Strange Love, he is credited with drums and piano across the record, providing that lyrical, understated rhythmic foundation while adding subtle keyboard textures. The cathartic closer Melanie showcased Mick Turner’s extended explorations and signature guitar work, building and then collapsing into heavier, noisier squalls of distortion—perfect territory for Turner’s very textural style to stretch out. The encore Summer High was dedicated to the late Rowland S. Howard (recalling Adalita’s Magic Dirt collaboration with him on the track from 2008). As the final notes of Black and White faded into the charged silence of The Factory Theatre, Bleak Squad took their time—unhurried, almost ceremonial—stepping forward together for a single, unified bow in acknowledgment of the rapturous applause that swelled around them.
Bleak Squad were ably supported by Crow and Amaya Laucirica.
Photo Credit – Felix Oliver
