Image Credit: James Anderson

Confront What Most You Fear in their Hometown debut

Born from a raw, unflinching response to the world’s turbulence, What Most You Fear is a shared endeavour to remain steadfast amid the swirling chaos.

Geelong is about to experience a night where music does more than fill the room. On Saturday 30 May, the Barwon Club Hotel will host the hometown debut of What Most You Fear, a six-piece instrumental post-rock ensemble whose music rises and falls like the tide itself. For those who have longed for an immersive live experience, this is the moment to answer the call.

What Most You Fear Hometown Debut

When: Saturday 30 May

Where: Barwon Club Hotel Geelong

Supports: Earth Cadet – Champion Motorist – The Shore

Tickets: Collect them here

Keep connected to your live music scene here.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rael Thomas (@raelthomas__)

What Most You Fear is not content with simply performing songs. Their music is a meticulously crafted journey, a fusion of technical skill and emotional resonance. Piano motifs and violin lines drift delicately through each composition, offering moments of melancholy that linger in the air. These passages swell into distorted guitar crescendos, layering noise and chaos with precision. The result is a soundscape that can be both haunting and exhilarating, inviting listeners to lose themselves in waves of sound that are at once intimate and overwhelming. Live tracks such as ‘the sea was rising and we tried to stay’ and ‘Ceasefire’, available to listen to on Bandcamp demonstrate the band’s mastery. Each member—Rohan Simkin, Dan Nicholas, Bec Alexander, Rael Thomas, Ally Fawn, and Jacob Hull—contributes to an intricate, collective vision, transforming post-rock from a genre into an emotional experience. It has seen them win over audiences at Worker’s Club in Fitzroy in their debut show.

“We all met in late 2024 after Rohan put out the call online for a Bellarine-based post-rock project, in the vein of bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Ros, Russian Circles, Mogwai,” says guitarist Dan Nicholas.

“It’s amazing how organically it’s all come together. We all get to bring our own styles, personalities and preferences to the band. Bec is both a classically trained pianist and metal-fiend, Rohan used to play chamber indie acoustic stuff. Jacob and I played in raucous power-pop bands, Ally is an improvisational folk violinist, and Rael basically covers all the weird stuff in between.”

The music of What Most You Fear reflects the tumult of the world around us. At times melancholic and eerily beautiful, it carries a sense of foreboding. Yet beneath the gloom lies subtle hope, like light glimmering beneath storm clouds. Each note, each swell, and each pause is deliberate. This is a band that understands not only how to play, but how to make music that moves, unsettles, and captivates. Their sound is a conversation with the listener, an invitation to explore tension and release, calm and chaos, despair and possibility. It’s sure to have been captured during their past weekend studio sessions at Danger Tone Studio with Tye Pennington, as the band craft their debut EP, with teases bound to make their way into their upcoming live headline debut.

“The idea of playing music without vocals and music has been really liberating.(It also means we don’t have to deal with a vocalist!) I think the project and its music means something different for all of us, and that’s what I love about instrumental music – it suggests without telling, it allows both the player and the listener to impart their own subjectivities on what they’re hearing.”

This evening is more than the debut of a hometown act. It is a celebration of contemporary Australian music, featuring a lineup that spans Melbourne, Geelong, and Bendigo. Earth Cadet, a trio blending grunge, shoegaze, post-hardcore, and emo, bring anthemic hooks and jagged riffs from their Bendigo base, and their debut album EXIT WOUNDS has already attracted attention on international playlists. Champion Motorist, the Melbourne two-piece, delivers post-rock soundscapes coloured with fuzz-laden guitar bombast. The Shore, a three-piece from the Surf Coast, contribute surf-rock reveries that shimmer with melody and rhythm. Each act offers its own distinct flavour, but the night will pivot around the immersive currents of What Most You Fear.

“We’ve been working for more than a year on this live set and have had a few run- throughs in Melbourne over the last few weeks. We’re humbled to take this to the Barwon Club for our home-town debut – and for the first time we’ll be playing with stage visuals. The aim will be to deliver something that sits at the odd juncture between unsettling and uplifting. And loud,” Nicholas offers.

Get ready to be engulfed by the orchestrated universe – rising with the intensity, then receding with the calm. What Most You Fear invites audiences to step into their world, confront the chaos and beauty of their sound, and emerge transformed.

To book your tickets to this celebration, head here. To find out more about What Most You Fear head here.