Amyl and the Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness review – Aussie punks still spit, but add a bit more polish

Anyone unfamiliar with Amyl and the Sniffers could learn a lot about them from the fact that when an acoustic guitar appears nine songs and 20 minutes into their third album, it feels genuinely jolting. Thus far, the Australian quartet have dealt in a brand of punk that carries with it the distinct whiff of the pub and the roughhouse pop-cultural heritage of their homeland. (There’s definitely something of the sharpie, a peculiarly Antipodean youth cult/folk devil, about their haircuts.) Blessed with songs called Blowjobs, Gacked on Anger and Don’t Need a Cunt (Like You to Love Me), their oeuvre has treated the concept of subtlety in much the same way as most people treat spam emails promising immediate bitcoin windfalls or sexual congress with lonely Russian beauties: just ignore it and move swiftly on, no good will come of engaging.

They are very good at what they do. Singer Amy Taylor sounds like X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene might have had she hailed from Bundoora or Wonga Park, and the band are on the brink of transforming critical acclaim and cult status into something much bigger. For their forthcoming UK tour, they have sold out three nights at London’s Roundhouse and added a fourth at the 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace.

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Cartoon Darkness initially presents itself as business as usual. The front cover features a blurred photo of Taylor flashing her breasts while sticking her tongue out, the rest of the Sniffers looking, as ever, like a stylist’s nightmare of mullets and sliders teamed with white socks. Opener Jerkin’ rages along for two minutes on a fabulously primitive one-chord riff, starts with the lyrics “You’re an arsehole”, and comes with a video featuring so many unclothed genitals – some of them being quite vigorously manipulated, as per the song’s title – that you can only see it on the band’s website after confirming you’re over 18.

Yet underneath the brash surface of Jerkin’, it’s clear that something, or rather some things, have changed as a result of their burgeoning success. The lyrics prickle at criticism, throwing the band’s fame at their “loser” detractors in the manner of a rapper. And with its litany of slang terms for Australian places – “Brizzie”, “Tassie” – the similarly themed U Should Not Be Doing That takes aim at self-appointed punk gatekeepers and sexists. Do It Do It, meanwhile, chucks more bile in the direction of “another person saying I’m not doing it right”, but equally seems nervous about the pitfalls of mainstream success: “When you get to the mountaintop will you put all the snow up your nose?” And on Tiny Bikini, Taylor appears to be oddly conflicted about her onstage image, or at least concerned about it being misconstrued. “I know it’s technically my space, but I’m the only one here in a bikini,” she sings, before pondering what would happen “if I didn’t show up in something spicy”.

Tiny Bikini sets a deliberately cartoonish baby-doll vocal to a fantastic take-the-rest-of-the-week-off riff and pummelling drums, the band’s trademark sound sharpened by veteran producer Nick Launay. But the most striking tracks on Cartoon Darkness suggest a group aware of their self-imposed musical limitations to date, and interested in seeing how far they can push the boundaries of what they do while still essentially sounding like Amyl and the Sniffers.

Which brings us to the aforementioned acoustic guitar on Bailing on Me, a song that would once have been characterised as more new wave than punk, Taylor’s vocal notwithstanding. It is melodically strong – as is Big Dreams, a sombre reflection on failure built around a moody, arpeggiated guitar. Both tracks sound thoughtful, not an adjective anyone was going to use about the Amyl and the Sniffers of 2019’s GFY (initials which stood, with a certain inevitability, for Go Fuck Yourself). U Should Not Be Doing That picks up where their 2020 cover of Patrick Hernandez’s Born to Be Alive left off: disco drums and a guitar riff that sounds like a boozy cousin of New Order’s Ceremony.

Clearly, none of these musical developments amount to breaking new ground, but they suggest a band alert to the danger of repeating themselves, and nestle among their tried-and-tested ragers rather than sounding grafted on. The lyrics about their success aren’t the whole story – there’s plenty of horror at the state of the world, as on Doing in Me Head, and ample evidence they still think throwing yourself into hedonism is a useful corrective. But these still feel like the most pertinent lyrics, simply because Cartoon Darkness might just be an album built to further their success. One way or another, they’ll have to come to terms with it, and the naysaying losers will have to lump it.

This week Alexis listened to

Becky and the Birds – I Made My Baby Cry
A startling introduction to the forthcoming debut album by Sweden’s Thea Gustafsson, I Made My Baby Cry is lo-fi but sumptuous; experimental but somehow pop, without obeying any of pop’s usual rules.