Albums of the Year 2024 - Number 7

In the eight years since Amyl and The Sniffers came together in Melbourne’s sticky pub-rock scene, Amyl and the Sniffers have become masters of balancing power and playfulness. With two critically acclaimed albums under their belt - 2019’s self-titled debut and 2021’s visceral Comfort To Me - vocalist Amy Taylor, guitarist Declan Mehrtens, bassist Gus Romer and drummer Bryce Wilson have achieved something unique and remarkable. 

Since the release of Comfort to Me, the band has seen their horizons broaden exponentially in every way. And it’s this attitude - bigger, brighter, smarter, sharper - that’s fuelling their third album, Cartoon Darkness. Recorded with producer Nick Launay at Foo Fighters’ 606 Studios in Los Angeles, on the same desk that captured Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the latest Amyl offering is full of surprises. Musically, Mehrtens, Romer and Wilson have written The Sniffers’ most diverse album yet. It stretches from classic punk to the glammy strut of recent single ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ to the stormy balladry of ‘Big Dreams’ (which is a sonic gear shift worthy of the title). 

Cartoon Darkness is about climate crisis, war, AI, tip-toeing on the eggshells of politics, and people feeling like they're helping by having a voice online when we’re all just feeding the data beast of Big Tech, our modern day god. It’s about the fact that our generation is spoon-fed information. We look like adults, but we’re children forever cocooned in a shell. We’re all passively gulping up distractions that don’t even cause pleasure, sensation or joy, they just cause numbness. 

Everything is such hard work, everything is heartbreaking, but everything is beautiful. I want to celebrate. I want to put my phone down and see someone's facial expression change with what they say. I want to people-watch. I want to see if there are bugs where I walk, but I don't see them. I also want the fantasy and the escapism. I want to lean into hedonism, I want to feel alive, while acknowledging the dystopia and chaos unfolding around me.

Cartoon Darkness is driving head first into the unknown, into this looming sketch of the future that feels terrible, but doesn’t even exist yet. A childlike darkness. I don’t want to meet the devil half-way and mourn what we have right now. The future is cartoon, the prescription is dark, but it's novelty. It's just a joke. It's fun.