This Will Destroy You - Manning Bar / Anzac Day

Words by Shayne Carter

Photos By Josh Groom

It’s been 10 long years since Texas post-rock band, This Will Destroy You, has graced Australian shores. A strong and loyal fan base of TWDY fans were treated to passionate warm up performances from Sydney emo quartet, Mowgli and Perth instrumental group Yomi Ship. It was easy to see the influence that has been passed down from their headline tour partners, now 20 year veterans of the ambient shoegaze genre. 

Just like the sounds we’ve come to know on ANZAC Day in Australia, TWDY’s performance began with a respectful silence from the eager crowd, as they waited with anticipation for “A Three-Legged Workhorse”, the opening track on TWYD’s self-titled album. In trademark fashion, the sound steadily grew from kaleidoscopic ambience into an epic wall of sound, reflecting the 2-up circles from where a few punters had recently emerged.

The band went on to play S/T in full in celebration of their 20 years creating music, belting out crowd favourites “They Move on Tracks of Never-Ending Light” and “The Mighty Rio Grande” with an energy that matched the ambient soundscapes and atmospheric crescendos. 

In August 2024, the band announced that co-founders Jeremy Galindo and Christopher Royal King had decided to pursue their own creative endeavours but would honour their global tour under two distinct line ups, playing different songs from the TWDY back catalogue. The line up of Galindo, Nicholas Huft, Johnnie McBryde, Ethan Billips went on to give the crowd a powerful rendition of “This World is Our ___” and “Dustism”, the single released right before their last Australian tour in 2015.

A band that lets the music do the talking, Galindo addressed the crowd just once to thank the fans for their years of ongoing support and to introduce a few songs from his new project you,infinite with former TWDY founding bassist, Raymond Brown. Finishing on dramatic epic “Little Smoke”, the Manning Bar crowd left full of adoration for the maestros of the post rock, ambient scene and although there was a touch of sadness, that this may be the last time we see TWDY in Australia, Galindo showed us that the future is bright for fans of the epic, atmospheric, instrumental category.