Photo Credit: Mike Dann
Last month, Perth’s premier electro power pop sensation VOYAGER won the hearts of ‘Eurovision – Australia Decides!’ viewers, winning the fan vote by a landslide and coming in second place by a mere three points via the official jury vote! Now, the band is launching their own Patreon account, for which fans can contribute and get a multitude of perks from the band such as discounted merch, early access to new music, exclusive access to Voyager’s Discord, and more! Sign up HERE.
In addition, the band will be hitting the road in Europe and the UK for the ‘Witness Tour Europe 2022,’ supporting the mighty VOLA. The tour will be kicking off in Munich (DE) at Feierwerk on the September 9 and will be traveling through 12 different countries, delivering 21 energetic shows before the final curtain, which will end at Euroblast Fest in Cologne (DE). The full run of dates can be found below!
VOYAGER comments:
“Europe, it has been a while indeed and what better way to mark our return to your shores (and to escape from ours) than with some other synth-tastic bands. We join VOLA and Four Stroke Baron across UK/Europe and we cannot wait to see your beautiful faces.”
VOYAGER has also recently premiered the official music video for the ‘Eurovision’ song entry, “Dreamer,” which can be seen THIS LOCATION.
VOYAGER European Tour data:
09.09.2022 DE Munich Feierwerk
10.09.2022 DE Hamburg Bahnhof Pauli
11.09.2022 DE Berlin Cassiopeia
12.09.2022 PL Krakow Zaścianek
13.09.2022 PL Warsaw Hydrozagadka
14.09.2022 AT Vienna Chelsea
15.09.2022 HU Budapest A38
16.09.2022 CZ Prague Rock Café
17.09.2022 IT Milan Legend Club
18.09.2022 CH Aarau KiFF
20.09.2022 ES Barcelona Bóveda
21.09.2022 ES Madrid Moby Dick
22.09.2022 FR Toulouse Connexion Live
23.09.2022 FR Lyon CCO
24.09.2022 FR Paris Backstage
27.09.2022 UK Bristol Fleece
28.09.2022 UK Manchester Rebellion
29.09.2022 UK London Garage
30.09.2022 NL Tilburg 013 KZ
01.10.2022 NL Amsterdam Melkweg OZ
02.10.2022 DE Cologne Euroblast Festival
In 2020, VOYAGER‘s music video for “Runaway” was exclusively premiered via ‘Eurovision – Australia Decides!’ Following an application via the Song Portal, the band finally received recognition for submitting a track and were paid tribute on the live television broadcast that aired on Saturday, February 8 on the Gold Coast. The can be seen at THIS LOCATION.
The song was taken from VOYAGER‘s 2019 release ‘Colours in the Sun,’ which received a wealth of international accolades. Recently, the single “Brightstar” was the first place winner in the Rock / Alternative category of the USA songwriting contest! Last year, ‘Colours in the Sun’ was the winner of The Independent Music Award in the Rock/Hard Rock Album category. The record was released in November of 2019 and landed a coveted #1 placement on the Australian Independent Albums chart! ‘Colours in the Sun’ also debuted at #7 on Independent Label Albums as well as #27 on Official iTunes Australia.
‘Colours in the Sun’ can be downloaded and streamed HERE.
Since their 1999 formation, whatever genre norms, boundaries and regulations thrust upon Perth, Australia’s Voyager have been smashed. They embrace, if not brandish pop; employ a keytar on stage, and, bring forward a positive, if not uplifting feeling to their music, running head-first into the endless parade of heavy bands who see the world in a different light. It’s perhaps why the title of their seventh full-length and first for Season of Mist, Colours in the Sun, is apropos: Voyager simply prefers to see the bright side of things.
“Observations of the malaises of the modern world and the baffling obsession with purity and difference all make me think,” says frontman and founding member Danny Estrin. “We’ve never had it better and we’ve never had it more colorful. To me that’s progress, it’s adaptation, it’s evolution and it’s astounding.”
The follow-up to 2017’s Ghost Mile, Colours in the Sun finds Voyager enmeshed in rich, melodic, song-first tapestries, led by Estrin’s smooth, capable clean vocal delivery. Estrin is self-aware of his vocals, calling them “unique and ‘80s.” But whatever tag Estrin affixes to his voice, they are the propellent throughout Colours in the Sun, serving up a steady diet of soaring, emotive choruses, where melody is paramount and along the way, even getting some help from another distinctive belter, Leprous’s Einar Solberg on “Entropy.”
“Einar and I became good friends on our tours through Europe and Australia,” notes Estrin. “I couldn’t help but ask him to guest on the album. He is a fantastic musician and vocalist. I sent him a reference track which he swiftly ignored and laid his own tracks down. The result is stunning!”
The kaleidoscope of sounds that comprise the album’s ten cuts is the result of Voyager’s far-reaching influences, many of which go beyond the traditional realms of metal and rock. Estrin calls it “catchy at the top, proggy at the bottom, as if Dream Theater and Depeche Mode had a baby.” It’s almost as if the term “progressive” is too limiting for Voyager, particularly when the guitar tandem of Simone Dow and Scott Kay merge for complex rhythms while doing battle against Estrin’s vaudeville-like keyboards (!) on “Reconnected.”
The “proggy at the bottom” notice is served by way of the rhythm section of bassist Alex Canion and drummer Ashley Doodkorte, who stretch their musical tentacles across busy, active cuts such as “Saccharine Dream” and the syncopated “Water Over the Bridge.” “I think we found our ‘voice’ on V (2014) and have been building on that ever since,” says Estrin. “The synthwave prog sound is really something that has naturally developed and has been refined even more on the new album. Every record is progress — that’s what progressive music is all about!”
According to Estrin, the Colours in the Sun album title encompasses a “vibrant multitude of people coming together under the hot Australian sun to create a beautiful and colorful soundscape.” It’s capped off by artwork courtesy of Doodkorte, who made the piece out of photographs near his house in Perth. A closer inspection reveals there are seven suns on the cover, one for each Voyager album, topped off by an updated version of the band’s logo comprised of five strokes, one for each member. No doubt a fitting visual summation of a band whose progress can be the described in the most literal and figurative of terms.
“It’s been a slow steady growth over the years,” concludes Estrin. “Other bands come and go after a year of fame. I really feel like we’ve built up an incredible fanbase, especially over the last decade, and the deal with Season of Mist seemed the logical step to take it to the next level together.”
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