It's evolving and gelling really well

And they haven't even released an EP yet. We had a sneak peek at the self-titled debut, released next week, and couldn't get enough of the lead track, a breezy, sun-kissed folk-pop ditty called Bed Down. ''I went travelling for a year and wrote a whole bunch of really different-sounding songs to what I'd been doing previously and they needed that collaborative effort, so I formed a different group to get it across the way I wanted,'' Pollard says. ''It's really about serving the song in a different way. It's evolving and gelling really well.'' TONIGHT ALIVE Genre Mainstream pop-punk.From Sydney's Hills District. Label Sony.Coming gigs May 27, 7.30pm, Metro Theatre, city, 9550 3666, $28.70 (supporting Amy Meredith). As far as musical about-faces go, they don't come much more extreme than switching from drumming in a jazz outfit to fronting an exhilarating pop-punk mob. That's what happened to Jenna McDougall in the two years between her meeting bass player Cameron Adler and him and his mates inviting her to sing for their then fledgling band, Tonight Alive, in 2008. Three years later, the Sydney five-piece have funded, recorded and sold more than 20,000 copies of their debut EP, All ShapesDisguises, signed a deal with record company giant Sony Music and spent the past few months in Los Angeles recording their imminent debut album with producer Mark Trombino (Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World). ''I think [going to] the US was the best thing we've ever done,'' says McDougall, who is, admittedly, still only 18. ''Everyone just worked really well together and I think the album is probably going to be everything we wanted it to be.'' The first single from it, Wasting Away, provides a shamelessly catchy signpost to what to expect - and Tonight Alive make no apologies for that. ''I don't think it's Rosetta Stone Japanese something you can deny, really,'' McDougall says. ''It sort of just came out of us and we weren't gonna try and push it away. ''We all listen to punk, we all listen to metal but you can't escape pop - and I don't think it's such a bad idea to infuse the two.'' THE LAST KINECTION Genre Indigenous hip-hop.From Two live in Newcastle, one lives in Cairns. Label Elefant Traks.Coming gigs March 26, 10am-6pm, Platform Hip-Hop Festival at the Block, Redfern, free. To describe siblings Naomi and Joel Wenitong and their DJ pal Jacob Turier as enjoying a resurrection with their crew the Last Kinection isn't far from the truth - literally as well as creatively. Not only were they all previously successful with other outfits (Naomi with the RB-pop confection Shakaya, Joel and Turier with indigenous hip-hop trailblazers Local Knowledge), they were lucky to survive a horrendous car crash in 2008. Now working on their second - and likely breakthrough - album, Next of Kin, they're on to what Joel describes as ''the happy half''. ''The first half was songs we wrote after the car accident, so they were kind of pretty intense,'' he says. ''We are up to some more upbeat, kind of 'I survived' songs now.'' Proudly Aboriginal, the Last Kinection's heritage not only informs their funky, forward-thinking but accessible hip-hop, Wenitong believes it makes them unique. ''It's just who we are,'' he says. ''It opens up so much more, I guess, originality in the music and so many more areas that no one else does do or even can do, for that matter. The songs we've been working on now, we've just been putting some [Aboriginal] language, lingo chants over the top and it just sounds like nothing else - and it means something, as well, to us.'

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