Let’s be honest for a second. When you hear that Karnivool is touring, your ears instantly prick up. They are the undisputed kings of Australian progressive rock, a band that makes complexity sound like second nature. But when the tour announcement dropped, the words Car Bomb and TesseracT were slapped on the bill alongside them, things suddenly took an even bigger turn for the better. This isn’t just a concert line-up; it’s an absolute musical assault on the senses.
HEAVY has always loved music that challenges you—the kind of tracks that don’t just sit in the background but grab you by the throat and force you to pay attention. That is exactly what this tour is going to do. If Karnivool is the masterclass in sonic atmosphere, deep groove, and sweeping, emotional melodies, then Car Bomb is the chaotic entity sent to tear the room to pieces before the headliners even touch the stage.
For the uninitiated, Car Bomb doesn’t just play metal; they weaponise time signatures. Their style is a dizzying, frantic, and claustrophobic mathcore that feels like a glitching supercomputer trying to punch its way out of your speakers. Pairing their jagged, laser-guided ferocity with Karnivool’s lush, towering soundscapes and the wizardry of TesseracT is a stroke of absolute genius. It’s a beautiful contrast between absolute, calculated chaos and pristine, progressive beauty.
HEAVY sat down with Car Bomb‘s guitarist Greg Kubacki to find out more. One of the topics of discussion is how Car Bomb find the balance between styles and genres in the creative process.
“I do the majority of the writing these days,” Greg replied. “Back in the day, it was all of us working together in a room, but now we all have responsibilities, so I do the majority of the stuff. When the song starts, I start with an idea and put it on the shelf for a month or two and come back to it and see if I like it. And if I like something – whether it’s technical or it’s knuckle-dragging, really simple stuff – I’ll just start working on a song from there.
When I run out of ideas, that’s when I usually know a song’s done. Or if I put the song again on the shelf for another month and listen to it, and I don’t find anything wrong with it, then I’m like, okay, it’s good. But usually we have so many ideas that we’re always working on. It’s not like the movie Amadeus, where we’re just writing it out, and it’s written in five minutes (laughs).”
In the full interview, Greg explains why it has taken Car Bomb so long to make it to Australia, how he prepares to tour a country for the first time and what they are expecting. He talked about the live show and what to expect, including what three songs people going to the show should listen to in order to get to know the band and music more.
Greg ran us through difficulties in transforming the musical complexities into the live arena, as well as finding the balance between styles in the creative process. We spoke about the early days of Car bomb and the musical climate that gave birth to the band, the first time he heard one of his own songs on the radio and more.
