MUSEUM
(Stop Start)
Full disclosure: One of this band's managers is in the room as I write this review. Fuller disclosure: That's irrelevant, because this is simply a fantastic album.
Lonerism aside, this has been a banner year for slightly underwhelming follow-ups to great records, and with the quick turnaround from debut LP Happiness And Surrounding Suburbs to this sophomore effort (just a tick over 12 months), there was every chance Ball Park Music wouldn't buck that trend. Fortunately, BPM frontman Sam Cromack has never been one to fit in with the crowd.
Any concerns that this album will lack a breakout hit in the tradition of 'iFLY' or 'It's Nice To Be Alive' are instantly assuaged by the opening salvo of 'Fencesitter' and 'Surrender', two undeniable earworms that show off the two extremes of the band's style (giddy, almost obnoxious pop in the case of 'Fencesitter', and tender fireside pop in the case of 'Surrender'). From there you can just relax and enjoy an album that – like Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs, only moreso – hangs together spectacularly well for a group largely viewed as a singles band.
I fucking love this album, but I don't think it's pretty, necessarily. Well, that's not entirely true – Jen Boyce's backing vocals remains as lovely as ever, and 'Coming Down', easily the strongest of these 12 songs, is gorgeous. For the most part, though, there's a strangely compelling ugliness behind the upbeat facade of Museum. These are not songs about boys meeting girls, these are songs about Cromack meeting the rest of the world halfway and not particularly enjoying it.
It's often ridiculous and kind of gross to reach any conclusions about a creative person's mindset based solely on the content of their creative output, but fuck it, let's do it anyway. It's hard not to get the impression that Cromack, having tasted what passes for success in the Australian indie rock scene, hasn't found it worth the effort; that he knows he should be happy with his band's achievements but feels somehow unsatisfied. “Now I do what I'm told / All for my tiny little pot of gold,” he sings on 'Pot Of Gold'; “I can't complain but I will,” he moans on 'Bad Taste Blues (Part II)' – these are just the most literal examples of a nagging negativity that lurks around the edges of Museum.
He could easily sound like a poor little rock star, but there's something strangely endearing about his pessimism. Cromack mines the same vein of vague societal unease as one of his obvious heroes, Thom Yorke, and often strikes gold there. Sure, we live in an age of wonders, but we're all in the habit of complaining about it, to some degree. There's usually a lot to complain about - “stop selling me shit that I don't need”, indeed.
(The aforementioned 'Pot Of Gold', incidentally, is yet another surefire single and guaranteed triple j favourite. Though it would be doing both Happiness and Museum a disservice, the quality of the Greatest Hits record you could cobble together from these two LPs is scary. Cromack is 23.)
Ball Park Music have pulled off a neat trick here – they've created something that feels far more intimate and confessional than their debut, even as their sonic range has expanded.
Whether they release another album next year or not, you'll be coming back to this one for a while.
★★★★★
