STACK #238 August 2024

MUSIC FEATURE

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AMY’S ART OF THE HEAVY HEART

O ur queen of relatable emo returns with Sunday Sadness , a collection of gems that are as easy to binge as a pack of peanut M&Ms. They’re as cosy, too: these tracks are soft, familiar, and actually hopeful, sometimes so light they’re like aerosol-painted clouds.

former sees pals secretly falling in love, much to the fury of a mutual friend (and contains an unexpected nonsense nod to The

Amy Shark

Beatles’ I Am the Walrus ). Babe tells a similar story in a

The title of opener Slide Down the Wall signals chaotic intensity, but the song is all about that thrilling cusp of a budding relationship rather than a breakdown. Speaking of titles, single Can I Shower at Yours never actually verbalises that question, but focuses on the rapt rush of new love. There’s an interesting pairing in tracks Two Friends and Babe ; the

parallel universe, where these two friends act on their attraction just once, and ultimately do not pursue romance – cue Shark’s perfectly honed ache-and-attack. The singer-songwriter and

Feel This Way Again ’s peppy, hummed harmonies, or the noble marching drums, glockenspiel, acoustic guitar, and rallying positive energy of Beautiful Eyes . Sunday Sadness thumps all the bells it sets up, and is poised to become Shark’s third ARIA number one in as many albums – and that calls for some Sunday Celebration! ZKR

Sunday

Sadness by Amy Shark is out Aug 16 via Sony

her production team have spent quality time thinking through each arrangement, such as It’s Nice to A LIFE LESS ORDINARY

I It’s a clever trick by Toni Watson, giving her most recent single a title that’s weirdly evocative of lyrics in her breakout hit Dance Monkey . That 2019 smash (which holds the record for most weeks at number one on the ARIA chart, with 24) saw a peanut-crunching spectator demand our protagonist “dance for me” - in contrast to the new single’s title, Dance with Me . That little swap of ‘for’ for ‘with’ is reflective of Watson’s evolution over the last five years. She has come into her own and developed the confidence to be truly vulnerable and invite her audience in. The self-conviction is all over Beautifully Ordinary , the Frankston-raised phenomenon’s second studio album. There are fewer of the caricatures she

previously used as (super entertaining, for sure) veils on debut LP Welcome to the Madhouse (2021), and far more from-the-heart ripsnorters which reveal her to be a deft hand at communicating heartbreak, loneliness and real inner growth. Authenticity: that’s what raises the ‘ordinary’ to the ‘beautiful’, and Watson has found the groove. ZKR

Beautifully

Ordinary by Tones and I is out Aug 2 via Sony

Tones and I

AUGUST 2024

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