Phantom Panda Power Wizard Masher Smasher, supported by Barbarion and Lill Chii
Date: 11 July 2026
Location: The Bergy Bandroom on Sydney Road, Brunswick
Price: $25 AUD
Vibes for the day: wet and cold, courtesy of Melbourne's winter rain
One of the benefits of living in Melbourne (by far the greatest city in the world, though I am willing to accept that it's possible I could be mistaken) is that there's always something going on in the local scene. The scene here is really mostly a mix of shitty death metal, sludge, and one of million variations on -core (metal, grind, hard, etc etc) things, and while none of these styles are really my first preference, going to watch live music regularly is a joy. I've been to a lot of shows and I've seen a lot of bands. I hope this gives some context for the following review because truly, I have never been to a show quite like this one.
Lill Chii
Website: https://www.metallurg.net/lill-chii/
First band on the bill was one I didn't even know existed until I walked into the doors of the venue (as an aside, I love the Bergy - it has some of the best sound of any of the Melbourne dives - I only wish they hosted metal shows more regularly.) This isn't unusual - lower level support slots often aren't advertised given it's not uncommon for them to be finalised quite close to the date. What did surprise me was seeing seven people crowd onto the tiny stage in the bandroom.
True to both their name and their stage getup, Lill Chii play a sort of Chinese-folk-infused metalcoreish kind of thing. I do want to give them credit for utilising instruments which are unusual in the metal scene; anytime the pipa or the erhu came through in their songs, I found myself much more engaged and interested than in the more conventional sections.
Overall though, this was pretty standard small local band fare. The performance was messy, with a couple of really notable off-key solos from one of the guitarists. More than anything, I wished the sound was more stripped-back. A running theme of bands with too many members is that they become busy and muddled in a way which really hurts the quality of their performance. I admire ambition, but for Lill Chii it has not come together. Somewhere in here is a neat idea; as it currently stands I can't say I'd recommend these guys.
Highlight: Apparently Lill Chii is Cantonese slang for "big dick", which the vocalist slightly awkwardly informed us of towards the end of the set. You learn something new every day.
Barbarion
Website: https://www.barbarion.net/
Barbarion are something of a meme in the local scene. Their shtick is nothing new or revolutionary; they perform semi-comedic trope-filled "heavy metal", all while stomping around the stage in cheap costumes. They've got a roman legionnaire, a generic medieval peasant, a guy in a kilt-- the list goes on. It's all very clearly meant to be Fun, in the sense of the term where you're meant to turn your brain off and laugh as the titular 'barbarion' [sic] man dressed in his furry loincloth and chains strikes poses while singing about THUNDER and POWER and FISTS OF MIGHT.
Given this, it's somewhat hard to review Barbarion. At one level they deliver exactly the performance they promise. The energy is high and frankly they're better musicians than one would expect for a band of their type. Getting three-part vocal harmonies right live is something which actual established bands struggle with, so it's a little baffling that the Bill-and-Ted character cast here manage it so well. However, the core problem with this band is how dreadfully boring their songwriting is. Every song meanders and you can never really get truly into the rhythm of enjoying the occasional nice riff or surprisingly competent solo, because there's always a sense that it'll immediately disappear, replaced instead with more plodding 1-2-3s while the band fetches another prop or does some stupid spoken word bit.
I've actually seen Barbarion before, in a dingy basement with a friend who is much more of a death metal maniac than me. At one point he turned around and said "this is what power metal sounds like to me" and while that show was particularly bad (the basement setting did the band no favours), I can't help but agree at some level. If you strip out the earnestness (lack of self-awareness?) with which, say, Manowar approach their music, you end up with something that looks like Barbarion. Yes, it can be fun to laugh at, but that fact itself is telling: I am laughing at this more than I am with it. I do think the dumb fun of this is something worth experiencing once, and it's definitely the sort of thing you could bring your dad to, but it's not something which I can in all fairness say is actually really enjoyable outside of the joke.
Highlight: At one point someone produced a full-sized wacky inflatable waving arm tube man, which was bounced around the audience for a bit. Also the fire alarm went off multiple times due to the density of smoke produced by the band's machines, so I guess that added a dash of extra absurd humour to the whole thing?
Phantom Panda Power Wizard Masher Smasher
Website: https://www.phantompanda.rocks/
This is also going to be a challenging review to write, but for differing reasons to Barbarion above. The immediate issue is defining what exactly Phantom Panda Power Wizard Masher Smasher (Phantom Panda, to keep me from entirely losing my mind when writing their name) is. Their website states that:
"[Phantom Panda's] performance blurs the lines between live music, theatre, animation, and technology. Experience frenetic musical compositions that leap wildly between brutal metal, psychedelic jazz, German techno beats, and cosmic lounge music, all synchronized meticulously to original animated visuals and stunning lighting effects."
True to this salad of words, Phantom Panda are an experience. The band members walked out to an animation of Bugs Bunny setting up to conduct an orchestra, and when the cartoon's baton dropped, we got 30 seconds of grindcore capped off with a little saxophone doot. Everything about this band is absolutely maximalist. The character costumes are absurd; LEDs and lasers pulsating over frankly nightmarish sequins, skulls, and too many eyes and teeth. Inflatable tentacles shoot across the stage to communicate…. something to the audience (is it a metaphor? Who can say.) Every song is like being on a moving bus which panic-brakes at irregular intervals. Genuine death metal riffs are abruptly replaced by a crooning sax and cheap bongos, before heading right back into stompy breakdowns. Throughout it all, an especially unsettling duck-faced lead vocalist provides utterly incomprehensible harshes, which upon further research turned out to be lyrics about absolutely ruining a minestrone?
This whole setup went on for close to an hour, during which time they kept the alien atmosphere bubbling and gurgling away. I had come into this with a little bit of knowledge about the band (that they were intentionally absurd and boundary-pushing), so I had some understanding that this would be weird, but it quickly overwhelmed my capacity to properly analyse what I saw before me. Nevertheless, I must now make an attempt to give some form of coherent commentary. To this end, I can say that Phantom Panda aren't making normatively good music. That much at least is clear. Parts of this show weren't even really music at all, in the way most people would understand the term. What Phantom Panda are doing though is performing, and as the whole thing washed over me, I found myself moving closer and closer to centre stage, entranced by something truly new to the palate. By the end of the performance, where the band crescendoed into a frenetic orchestral-death metal non-stop sonic assault, I found myself clutching a newly-formed and vaguely transcendental understanding of why I'm drawn to extreme music.
Modern art can be difficult to engage with, given how much of it is in response to threads of artistic convention which one often doesn't even have a baseline context for, let alone enough of an understanding to make sense of a deconstruction of the thing. As someone who has seen a lot of live shows, I found Phantom Panda's avant-garde production to be deeply compelling. I recognise that this is the sort of thing which is especially polarising, and so the only fair scores I feel this should receive are on either the 0/10 or 8/10 side of the scale. After some consideration and reflection, I find myself standing by the 8/10 side. I do recommend this, if only because experiencing unusual new things is truly good for the spirit, even if you end up hating the show. After all, the actual worst thing any band can be is boring.
Highlight: The banjo/bongo player's coral-pink costume being matched to a same-colour backing light coming through the banjo skin was a great vibe.