When Perth five-piece heavy rock outfit Karnivool emerged in April 2005 with an album called Themata, two things were immediately obvious to anyone who heard it. One, here was a record that in one fell swoop dispatched of the dying dregs of a tired nu-metal scene and single-handedly set a new benchmark for heavy rock in this country and others for years to come. And two, Karnivool were going to be big. Really big.

Over the following years the band toured hard, selling out major venues wherever they played and attracting a hardcore cult of fans. Karnivool went on to earn three spots in the triple j ‘Hottest 100’ (the largest music poll in the world) and became a drawcard act at the Big Day Out and other major rock festivals in Australia. And, after shifting 32,000 units of Themata completely independently, they secured an international licensing deal for the album in the US, UK, Canada and Mexico through the Bieler Bros label. Suddenly, this little ol’ prog-rock band from Perth were one of Australia’s biggest acts.

It took three years before the band were ready to re-enlist Themata’s producer-extraordinaire Forrester Savell to record and produce the new album, Sound Awake. Released in June 2009, and whilst being a self-proclaimed slow-burning grower of a record, Sound Awake wasted no time in infiltrating the ears of the masses, going Gold in Australia in less than a month, then securing release dates worldwide from the US to Germany to Switzerland to Sweden and beyond. A year on has seen numerous sold-out Australian tours, two massive US and European tours including an appearance at this year’s SxSW event to rave reviews, a main-stage slot on the national Big Day Tour and a massive amount of critical acclaim pouring from everywhere including the likes of highly respected press such as Kerrang, Rocksound, Rolling Stone, Art Rocker, Blunt Magazine, Kill Your Stereo, and more.