★★★★☆

Melbourne-via-Wagga-Wagga’s favourite sextet return with their fourth album in as many years, continuing their winning streak of refinement and accomplishment on their punchiest collection of jangle-pop yet.

It’s a musically laid-back album set to lyrics on self-doubt, doomed relationships and reaching the end of your tether for life’s bullshit. The strengthened approach is announced as soon as the timeless guitar hook in ‘Black Blood’ kicks in. You’ll spend hours trying to place it, but while it’s reminiscent of many others (The Go-Betweens, Galaxie 500, The Breakfast Club soundtrack) it’s an Ocean Party original.

From there, the hits keep coming – the start-stop rhythm of the title track, the horns/bassline combo of ‘Aircon’, and ‘Guess Work’, which puts their six-person membership to full use. Otherwise, The Ocean Party are an incredibly democratic band, but unfortunately it’s to their detriment. At least four members of the group have a go at reaching the same level of beauty heard in the melodious guitars (an almost impossible task), and the discrepancies between their approaches are too slight to give the album variety.

It’s a minor complaint about an album that features several high watermarks. This is the sound of a band with an already strong sense of songcraft coming into its own.

The Ocean Party’sLight Weightis out through Spunk now.

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