In the eight years since Amyl and The Sniffers came together in Melbourne’s sticky pub-rock scene, Amyl and the Sniffers have become masters of balancing power and playfulness. With two critically acclaimed albums under their belt – 2019’s self-titled debut and 2021’s visceral Comfort To Me – vocalist Amy Taylor, guitarist Declan Mehrtens, bassist Gus Romer and drummer Bryce Wilson have achieved something unique and remarkable.

Since the release of Comfort to Me, the band has seen their horizons broaden exponentially in every way. And it’s this attitude – bigger, brighter, smarter, sharper – that’s fuelling their third album, Cartoon Darkness. Recorded with producer Nick Launay at Foo Fighters’ 606 Studios in Los Angeles, on the same desk that captured Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the latest Amyl offering is full of surprises. Musically, Mehrtens, Romer and Wilson have written The Sniffers’ most diverse album yet. It stretches from classic punk to the glammy strut of recent single ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ to the stormy balladry of ‘Big Dreams’ (which is a sonic gear shift worthy of the title).

Cartoon Darkness is about climate crisis, war, AI, tip-toeing on the eggshells of politics, and people feeling like they’re helping by having a voice online when we’re all just feeding the data beast of Big Tech, our modern day god. It’s about the fact that our generation is spoon-fed information. We look like adults, but we’re children forever cocooned in a shell. We’re all passively gulping up distractions that don’t even cause pleasure, sensation or joy, they just cause numbness.

Amy Taylor on ‘Chewing Gum’, the first single taken from the album: ‘Life’s adversity is desire never realised. Having to wash the dishes without ever being the one to eat the meal, so close but never quite enough. Trying to celebrate the ignorance of youth despite being robbed, choosing ignorance, choosing to be stupid and choosing love despite it all. Choosing wrong decisions for love, for life, because it is short (or is it long?). Surrendering to joy, surrendering to being a vision, in your own power, because making decisions based on emotion rather than logic is liberating, and despite the hell outside, you come out unscathed, through the flames, burnt but only superficially, not stopped, not affected, not human. Life is work, life is not free, you never really work hard enough because there is no end goal, so all we can do is choose to fail’. This Is Pop? today’s song of the day is here for you.