Dust shared ‘Alastair,’ a jaggedly anthemic new single that serves as the latest preview of their debut album Sky Is Falling.

While the fast-rising Australian group have always demonstrated a deft melodic touch, it’s often buried within a maelstrom of neck-breaking tempos, free jazz-indebted tears of saxophone, and broken glass guitar. Taken at a slightly slower clip, ‘Alastair’ takes the labyrinthine logic of dust songs and injects it with a newfound warmth. While a cascade of potential influences flash to mind — Sonic Youth’s ping-ponged guitar interplay, the chiming Rickenbacker tone of The Byrds, both the cleverly shuffling drum patterns and cryptic barfly poetry of The National circa Alligator — the track is firmly planted in dust’s burgeoning vision of a damaged, but ultimately redemptive, world.

Of the single, dust’s Gabriel Stove and Justin Teale explain: “Alastair is a song about meeting someone down on their luck and feeling conflictingly empathetic for them. It is navigating the challenges of growing up without getting bitter. It’s a short story from when we went on a writing trip in Mullumbimby. We met a man named Alastair at the Mullumbimby Motel and within 5 minutes of meeting him he recounted his whole recent years of life, how he couldn’t get ahead.”

This Is Pop? today’s song of the day is here for you.