PEDIGREE CHUMS: The Tortured Souls Shine Beyond Life’s Game of Dark and Light
Justin Davies of The Tortured Souls (Image: Ruth Crafer)
The Tortured Souls is a Perth-based Australian musical project spearheaded by singer-songwriter Justin Davies.
A Creative Rebirth
Justin Davies comes from a musical family, but his creative awakening came late, picking up a guitar and beginning to pen songs around 2023.
It was a rebirth emanating from a personal loss. What started as an intimate, therapeutic outlet soon demanded a larger canvas.
With siblings Ashley, an AIRA Award-winning composer, and Tanya-Lee, who is a singer-singwriter, it was probably inevitable that Justin would follow suit, and he was able to team up with some top-tier Australian talent to develop his acoustic compositions and sketches into something more fully fledged, under the handle The Tortured Souls (TTS).
Employing a musical style which engages the bittersweet emotional bite of baroque-pop, classic rock and indie folk, Davies channels the observational grit of fellow Aussie icons such as Paul Kelly and Don Walker, with his blend of warm Hammond organs, swirling string arrangements and vulnerable, confessional story telling.
There’s a really strong and stellar pedigree to the band, with TTS members including drummer Malcolm Clark, multi-instrumentalist Jay Cortez, both former members of legendary band, The Sleepy Jackson, Tony Bourke on piano (whose credits read like a who's-who of Aussie music, including Eskimo Joe, The Waifs and Meg Mac and Dave Mann), Nigel Hartford on Bass, guitarist Craig Weighell and there are also musicians from the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in the TTS enclave.
In another masterstroke, Davies has engaged two-time Grammy-nominated producer Rob Grant (known for his work with Tame Impala, Nick Cave, and Josh Homme) to produce, mix and master recordings to date at his Poons Head Studio, East Fremantle, Perth. As Davies passionately exudes:
“The studio itself has its own magic and sense of nostalgia - it feels like a place where wonderful things can happen. It’s hard not to fall into this mindset and energy that exists in the studio - it’s filled with vintage equipment everywhere - surrounding you, against the walls, on the walls, in between the amps and guitars, everywhere. It’s hard not to feel full of something special and it pulls everyone together into this fantastic feeling of being locked into something special - with the music and with each other. You just seem to just love the music and who you are making it with, and where you are at that moment, is the best place you could possibly be.”
The Opening Chapters
The story of The Tortured Souls begins with two singles that set the project’s emotional blueprint:
"Unforgettable Days"
Their debut single from 2025, was written about longing, loss, and nostalgia. It’s insistent, chugging guitar providing the horsepower to carry the song’s poignant exploration of nostalgia, longing, and the darkness left behind in the rear-view mirror.
Watch the video and listen below:
"No Tomorrows"
The Tortured Souls “No Tomorrows” single artwork
Released in May 2026, “No Tomorrows” trades acoustic drive for a grooving, melancholy stride. Composed on a beach in Queensland using a cheap ¾-scale travel guitar that more than elevated its fiscal worth, the track serves as a poignant reminder to hold onto precious moments before time slips away.
Watch and listen below:
New Single: Gold-Lined Melancholy
New single “Gold-Lined Melancholy”, to be released on 20th August 2026 capitalises on the groundswell built by its predecessors.
The song is a more reflective, slower number and showcases the wonderfully emotionally resonant vocal delivery of Justin Davies, as he laments “searching for so long”.
As Davies explains:
“Gold-Lined Melancholy was written over three or four days in the front room of my home, late at night in front of a warm fire, sitting on the banks of a lake on the way down south, and then in the carpark, at sunset, in front of the main break in Margaret River. As with most of my songs, they start as a result of my thoughts taking me back to moments that now feel like they were shaping the future me. Memories of times that left the wounds for me to look at and reflect on for many years later, memories which can instantly transport me back to feeling the same feelings that are ever-overwhelming.”
The song is underpinned by a majestic string section from the aforementioned West Australian Symphony Orchestra to stunning effect as the full cinematic splendour of the song unfolds over nearly 6 minutes of its perfectly-paced and inhabited airtime.
As Davies sings of “Silver that shines beyond life’s game of dark and light” the listener is well and truly swept along in the song’s melancholy, as it tugs on the heartstrings throughout the duration of its permeated poetic splendour.
It’s a truly striking song which recalls the heartfelt storytelling and magnitude of one of my favourite artists, Paul Kelly, whilst forging Davies’ own hallmark upon some stellar musicianship, expertly captured and produced with a vintage analogue purity by Rob Grant .
“The winding road has served me well”
The track has an engaging accompanying video, imbued with poignant black and white movie clips and images, band and smouldering landscape shots and was curated and created by Dead As Disco (Jimmy Barnes, The Paper Kites, The Cat Empire), which can be viewed below:
As Davies elaborates, “The film clip was an important piece to the release - the vital other half. The song says what it says, but it was so important to try and capture life’s poignant moments with a video that had a depth and dreaminess within it. To capture life’s wondrous, nostalgic, lost and lonely moments in an engaging, timeless and theatrical light was so important. I feel like that was captured beautifully.”
Unleashing the Torture: New Album due 27th November 2026
These three singles serve as a compelling preamble to The Tortured Souls’ debut full-length album, Unforgettable Days, set to arrive on 27th November 2026. Capturing the staggering surge of songwriting that has poured out of Davies over the last eighteen months, the LP promises to be one of the most poignant, beautifully crafted Australian releases of the year.
“The style and feel of songs are varied, as there are a few songs that have quite a lean into country story-telling ballads, and others that feel more like songs that were crafted in the late 60’s and early 70’s,” explains Davies. “If there was one theme that ran through all the songs, regardless of their style and influences, it would be that of nostalgia and longing and most of all love lived and lost.”
If their current trajectory is anything to go by, The Tortured Souls are not just processing past pain—they are converting it into something truly enduring.
Keep your ears tuned; Julian Davies is an artist who has found his voice, and a band that demands your full attention.
“In the end, with the distance of time, there is only gold and settled understanding the winding road is a life lived, and all which is pure and true, is the potency that prevails. Love - living it and missing it, wishing for it and promising it - is what shines through.”
