Catch Your Breath, Heartline @ The Gov, Adelaide 19/5/2026

Josh Mowery voices many different characters on stage. The commander, the poet, the lover, the forlorn maverick. The music is the canvas he paints his story. The interludes, overviews of the songs content. Catch Your Breath create more than a show; they create a real-life audio book on stage.

Here in Adelaide on a chilly Tuesday night, the crowd congregate around the stage like a marshmallows towards a hot fire, getting crispy but melting on the inside.

Catch Your Breath’s songs certainly land with a demographic that are here in numbers to rid themselves of emotions and Josh Mowery is the doctor with the cure.

With main tour support from Adelaide’s own Heartline, who bring their own cheer squad, it’s a night of high energy, fusion of styles and plenty of singing.

It is with Heartline we start. They bop themselves onto the stage and when the riffs hit, they stay hit. Watching the band over the years, I’ve seen them grow and morph through influenced identity to a standalone outfit. In fact, vocalist Luke Taylor mentions that the new songs are the first written by this line up, songs that show a subtle shift into a refined mature outfit. The old stuff though is still fun to hear, and watch. The vibrancy of Synthetic or the popular cover of Paramore’s Misery Business all performed like being catapulted over ten burning cars. Exhilarating, scary and nonstop glee.

Catch Your Breath though arrive here with the kind of buzz that their debut album, Shame On Me will generate when it’s full of soulful vocals, brutal breakdowns and giants hooks for choruses.

Opening with Blood Money, Mowery deftly moves between the growls of a rabid dog and the cleans of a pop star. The crowd love it, enjoying the crispiness of the band’s sound with the melting lyrics.

Most of the songs have a voice over beforehand, which sounds like the Red Queen in the Resident Evil movies, explaining the emotional content of the forthcoming song, setting the mood for the rocking Savages or the mournful Good In Goodbye.

Mowery vocal abilities are extreme. In a world where many bands will have a vocalist who can growl and another with cleans who sometimes rap, Catchy Your Breath have the multi-talented Mowery does it all. Backed on the harmonies by guitarist Teddy Herrera, the band smoothly transition between styles that is often like hearing a metalcore band successfully land RnB songs. Or the other way around, either way, it resonates with the audience who are putty in the band’s hands.

The ballad Mirror goes huge, Lost has the room head bobbing along and (Gen)inside dynamic soft and heavy approach shakes the room. When the band go heavy, like in Ricochet or 21 Gun Salute they rock, however it’s the more serene approach to Criminal or Y.S.K.W. that sends electrical currents of excitement throughout the room.

The camera lights are out for Dial Tone as everyone sings Give me a reason before the album’s title track closes the night out in anthemic, harmony infused rapture.

Catch Your Breath is an apt name, the styles vary within song however it’s the relatable lyrics that need to be sung, even roared, that you need to catch your breath for.

Live Review By Iain McCallum