★★★★

The Waifs’ latest release is perhaps their best yet.

In an album written as a ‘thank you’ to fans, Ironbark celebrates the band’s 25-year career with a collection of songs that aim to make you feel more Zen than you ever have before. Each track on this bumper release pulses with crisp beats and vocal harmonies that harness all the beauty of a lullaby.

The album’s title track sets a trend for the whole collection, with its delightful folk aesthetics to match those in ‘I Won’t Go Down’, a moving song that generates peaceful imagery and stirs up something deep inside you.

Here is a band that time and time again has proven its musical ideas are in abundance, continually creating new material without growing stale. Ironbark covers every subject from lost love to world tragedy, and the pen remains ever-sharp.

With each quivering bend of the harmonica, every harmonised vocal line, Ironbark is an album of reflection and development.

As a reflection on The Waifs’ stellar career and evidence of their ongoing development, there’s never been a more perfect way for a band to commemorate a milestone.

Ironbark byThe Waifsis out now through Jarrah/MGM.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine