Straight outta Melrose: Kurralta Park takes flight
On their debut album, Kurralta Park explores anxiety and otherness, and lays claim to the dusty emo crown of Adelaide’s pub scene.
Ahead of the release of their debut album, Powell Palace, Kurralta Park developed a cult online following.
If singer/guitarist and band founder Bindi McCallum’s social media posts were your only exposure to the band, you’d never expect the intensely emotional and at times devastating music to belong to the Adelaide trio, or maybe you’d think them a weird social experiment to promote the suburb west of Adelaide.
It’s what makes the tunes so special, though; an intimate look into Bindi’s nervous disposition and all-encompassing feeling of otherness. Throughout the 13-track record, he takes listeners through the CBD, in and out of pubs and dive bars, into his car and on the beaten track to his hometown of Melrose in the state’s Mid North. It’s a deeply personal listen.
“The main thing that I want people to take away from the album is that the expression of deep personal feelings doesn’t have to just come from the usual suspects,” Bindi – a third of Kurralta Park alongside Madelaine Zammit and Zack Dowd – tells CityMag over a beer at The Exeter.
“Because I grew up in a rural town and come from a proud farming family, I used to feel like that stopped me from creating good art, or I was already ten steps behind everyone else.
You might like
“Now I’ve realised that there’s some really cool shit that happens when people bleed outside of their moulds.”
Powell Palace is a record that wears its influences on its sleeve proudly, like a footy jersey plastered with sponsor logos. That only elevates it though, with Bindi’s fondness for dolewave and Australiana floating on top of innovative emo-drenched pop punk.
Bindi doesn’t shy away from his accent either, which makes the lyrics deliriously fun to sing back at him at a Kurralta Park gig. Vowels are round and pronounced, stretched to their fullest. They’re words best sung with a cold lager in hand.
Thematically, the record touches on an embarrassing live moment on ‘Rinsed With Doubt, Damp To Touch’, reminiscent of Taking Back Sunday’s early stuff through an ocker filter; venom spewed by mainstream media outlets on ‘In Murdoch We Trust’; and into the landscapes of the Flinders Regions on ‘Host’.
Subscribe for updates
Lead single ‘Into My Gums’ is a certified pub classic and a singalong anthem, while Madelaine shines when she takes on lead vocals on ‘Wall’. She’s also the record’s cover star, with a younger version of herself at the centre of the album art.
Like the band, the record is named after a South Australian place; one very close to the outfit’s collective heart.
“Powell Place is the street that Zack’s dad [Brendan] lived on in the Barossa. Zack and I would go there and we’d drink XXXX Gold with Brendan, and there were a couple of albums that I listened to at that house,” Bindi recalls.
“One of them was colourblind’s self-titled, and before we went to Brendan’s house to listen the album didn’t quite make sense to me. But for some reason, being in that room there, it just made it all click.
“At the start of the year Brendan actually passed away from lung cancer. The album was recorded by then, but there’s a dedication to him. It’s where the album was written, in my head.”
Beyond the references, the record is a true-blue South Australian affair; it was recorded at Stirling in just five days. It’s been released by local label Daybed Records too, which has Bindi pretty starstruck (he’s an Ethanol Blend stan).
He’s not letting it get to his head too much, though, and is going to keep being strange on Instagram.
“I’m not sure why people gravitate towards me being a bit weird online, but it comes naturally to me, so I’m not going to stop doing it even if they didn’t like it,” he says.
This article first appeared in The Blueprint Edition of CityMag, released in spring of 2025.
