The title of The Jezabels’ third album,Synthia, means more than their lead singer and lyricist Hayley Mary could have realised when it was first suggested in jest by producer Lachlan Mitchell.

“We were writing a song and layering synth upon synth and [he] said, ‘You should call this song ‘Synthia’, ha ha ha,’ and then I started thinking about it and was like, ‘That’s gotta be the album title!’

“It’s obviously a pun on the word ‘synthesiser’ and also a female name, and before that we had thought about the album as a person. The reason I thought the name was so great [was] because of some of the connotations it has in rock’n’roll. Cynthia being, of course, John Lennon’s first wife, the goddess of the moon, Cynthia Plaster Caster – you know, it really turned around from her being a groupie and she sort of became the rock star and I really like the story. There’s a little bit of those kinds of ideas of groupie culture in the record as well, so it just seems really coincidentally suitable. You know those serendipitous things?”

As it turns out, writing the album started out almost as serendipitously. “We weren’t actually intending on making a record,” Mary explains. “We were getting together to play a show and we just started writing, so it was a bit unexpected. Because of that, we just let the songs go where they wanted. We didn’t really think about trying to rein them in to any direction or go where people might expect. It was quite an organic process, for want of a less wanky word.”

Released this week after 18 months of work, Synthia is arguably The Jezabels’ most powerful collection yet. Four years since their acclaimed debut album, Prisoner, and almost two after the release of its follow-up, The Brink, Synthia sees the Sydneysiders build on their characteristic sound with more knowledge, skill and confidence than before – soaring vocals included. They saw the music manifest itself naturally and relied on their collective subconscious, resulting in a naturally cinematic quality (‘A Message From My Mothers Passed’ echoes Chariots Of Fire), as well as a live energy that itches to be heard on a stage.

“I don’t think we ever try and make things cinematic,” Mary says, before she reflects. “Maybe? Maybe it’s conscious in that – no-one’s said this – but I feel like you’re trying to sometimes touch the sublime when you’re making a record, and that can have very visual connotations. I think the sublime sort of surpasses all senses – it’s encompassing all senses. It’s not just music, I suppose, it’s artistic as well. Sam [Lockwood, guitar] and Heather [Shannon, keyboards] are very good at making those kind of cinematic sounds anyway for the band, so yeah, it’s just natural. Just trying to touch the void,” she laughs.

Keeping the creative process intimate helped The Jezabels achieve their results as well. “Everything felt, from the music outwards, like we were just pulling things back to the centre and doing things driven by the band and the people in the band,” says Mary. “On the last record, we had a record company in the UK and America just distributing, but having them around… it can be very subtle. All of a sudden there’s people who have an interest and you’re like, ‘Oh, well they want radio songs.’ I don’t think we really listened to them but unfortunately there was a level of pressure, even if you’re consciously going against what they want or not listening to them, it still has an underlying effect on your confidence.”

Confidence was key for Mary and the band as they moved to new individual strengths during the album’s creation. With barriers of personal health and self-worth to overcome, combined with a new-found self-determination, it was paramount for them to push a message of strength through the music and lyrics. The lines “What’s a girl to do / Standing in the spotlight” and “Whatever you do little girl / Just hold your head up high”from ‘Stand And Deliver’ and ‘A Message From My Mothers Passed’, respectively, best represent that for Mary.

“I think [those songs] go together quite well,” she says proudly. “They sum up the spirit behind it, of coming from a place of a lack of confidence … I think the band probably went through [it] coincidentally at the time, due to a lot of factors – physical health, mental health, all of this stuff that happened during the second record – that we were still there and able to make another record.”

While it’s since been revealed that one of those obstacles in their way was Shannon’s fight with ovarian cancer, which has now led to the postponement of a scheduled album launch tour, there’s plenty Mary sees reward in.

“Oh, the album [itself],” she says. “Also, I think I got my confidence back. Which is probably actually more rewarding than the album, for me, but they’re symbolically linked. I’m so satisfied with it that it won’t take external validation to make me satisfied. It comes from an internal confidence, which I actually think is hard to come by in the culture of ‘likes’ and social media. But I’m just really satisfied with [the fact] making that album came from inside and made us much more confident. We will [tour] at some point, I assume – it’s just not going to be straight away, and hopefully that means people just have more time to get to like the record.”

Synthiaby The Jezabels is out Friday February 12 independently through MGM.

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