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hopeful Dreamers to Big Dreams: Australian punk band take on the world again with looming powerhouse third, “Cartoon Darkness.”

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Ever since the Australian punk quartet of vocalist Amyl Taylor, guitarist Declan Mehrtens, bassist Gus Romer and drummer Bryce Wilson (her sniffers) fell together in Melbourne’s sticky pub-rock scene all but eight years ago, they have slowly become the masters of their own success.

The self-titled debut in 2019 was a remarkable addition to the powerful punk rock works of yesteryear – but their visceral follow-up of Comfort To Me in 2021 really was the ticket. More an extending limb to the rather limited footfalls of punk rock, Comfort To Me allowed Amyl and co to delve into something far greater as it traversed over many avenues of glammy strut and classic punk. It was more than just a second record – it was a sign of things to come from a band who had undoubtedly broadened their vision to what they can muster from such a confined genre.

It’s this attitude that has tipped Cartoon Darkness to follow the same trajectory. The third is sharper and smarter in every sense of the word as they leap and bound into thematic swiftness as life’s future as a cartoon – “the perception is dark, but it’s novelty. It’s just a joke. It’s fun.” It’s this life’s-shit-but-we’re-having-fun-doing-it type of punk rock that has played such an integral life-saver to the mundanes of 9 to 5. Seems that Amyl and the Sniffers are the next to throw their two cents in on the matter.

The album’s set up is enough for it to hit the ground running. Recorded with producer Nick Launay at Foo Fighters’ 606 Studio in Los Angeles – on the same desk that captured Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – the album is steeped in musical amenities that is certainly swept up in the magic of the moment.

There’s a storm brewing with Big Dreams, a ballad placeholder, while swampy lead U Should Not Be Doing That is a wholly classic tip-off to the OGs as it crunchy bass and twitchy guitar licks mark up Bikini Kill of time before and Scowl of time today. Chewing Gum is an outlandish anthem of rip-roar funk, as Do It Do It and Pigs channels the fast chugga-chugs of locomotive punk. It’s an album decorative in looming slows and heavy lulls to the fast, tetchy grilling of mosh punk, losing all sense of feeling. The album ends in any punk rock album ends – a robotic funky-blues flash.

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Understandably so, the band is unperturbed by a straight-forward theme, as the album’s nuances rings and sing with enough diversity for it to be a fab, fab record – by a group who know exactly what they’re about.