Album review by Charlotte Poynton
RAAVE TAPES self-titled debut album, a twelve-track masterpiece to soundtrack your late nights and early mornings alike, released on Friday the 24th of May, making history for both the band and long-time fans. The previously punk-laced, Muloobinba-based project of RAAVE TAPES has been reborn as the sonically-fluid, hyperpop-centric wonderkid of Lindsay O’Connell and Joab Eastley, and these songs perfectly exemplify this new taste of the project.
Kicking off this debut album with full force is the latest single from RAAVE TAPES, titled ‘Braces’. This track acts as the perfect bridge between the duo’s previous discography and this new era, with pure dance pop goodness and a final chorus raging with raw power. ‘Braces’ encapsulates the heat of strobe lights falling on your face in a crowded dance floor and the blind joy of celebrating your favourite people in any given moment.
Track two of ‘I Just Wanna Be Alone’ addresses the pressure of balancing social life, relationships and measurable self-confidence in our modern whirlwind society. Released on the same day as the album announcement, this track stands as a testament to RAAVE TAPES skill of musical fluidity, sitting comfortably at home in a casual pop atmosphere. With contrast to the vibrantly chaotic nature that we have come to expect from this era of our favourite musical duo, ‘I Just Wanna Be Alone’ takes a step back to represent the duality and nature of variance present in the processing of complex emotion.
RAAVE TAPES pay a titular homage to 2019’s ‘k bye’ with track three of their debut album, titled ‘k hi’. A song detailing a distanced relationship that is accompanied by a music video with O’Connell and Eastley riding dirt bikes whilst playing guitars, ‘k hi’ is a hyperpop leaning bop, complete with a cathartic chorus and hooky pre-chorus with the line “You and me and all the secrets of the world”. This song received one of my first five-star ratings of 2024 and stood itself as a preface of the incoming success that this year and this era will hold for RAAVE TAPES.
Coming in at track four, ‘All Night (Regret)’ is definitely a song that will be on repeat all night. With a clean bass drop signalling the initial chorus, this song reads as a love letter to the lonely and the deserted by a faux friend group by any other name. This track holds a very light touch of early 2000’s techno nostalgia, complimented strongly by O’Connell and Eastley’s balanced lyrical back and forth. My personal highlight of this absolute earworm would have to be the instrumental outro, as nothing scratches the brain quite like the emulation of a vocal melody.
Our first taste of RAAVE TAPES’ debut album came in the form of track five, ‘Goodbye’, in the August of 2023. Pure hyperpop bliss coats shades of vulnerability with the lyrics of loss and moving on, as RAAVE TAPES stand proudly on the crux of being mature enough to address their weaknesses and complexities, whilst also bold enough to dance their way through anything they may face.
‘Brakes Cut’ slices in at track six, leaving a trail of glitter in its wake. A very sugar-coated, bubblegum pop song, ‘Brakes Cut’ is sonically reminiscent of a video game soundtrack, with autotuned vocals and a bouncy synth motif juxtaposing the dark and spiralling lyrics. If you played this song to me in 2019, I would’ve told you that it’s the opposite of what RAAVE TAPES could ever do, whereas me in 2024 is absolutely loving this shiny hyperpop piece. This track solidifies the potential commercial success of RAAVE TAPES, especially following in the footsteps of the success of Troye Sivan’s latest fuelled pop album.
Breaking the fourth wall is the ever-charming track seven, titled ‘Enemies + Jealousy’. Pairing a futuristic synth motif with handclaps and a retro vocal modulation, this track is full of 2000’s nostalgia and lyrical references contained in short and snappy lines. ‘Enemies + Jealousy’ is a song of pure fun and carefree notions, perfectly contrasting to the heavy emotional content conveyed lyrically on many of the surrounding tracks on this debut album. With little spoken quips and high-energy mood, this song is guaranteed to soundtrack your yearning for the summer months to return.
‘Sin Bin’ comes in at track eight, as a raging dance pop song laced with petulant emotion. A classic call-and-response chorus between O’Connell and Eastley lays the ground for a classic tale of miscommunication and the jump to wildly presumed conclusions. Irascibly passive-aggressive lyrics are supported by the heightened pace of the percussive beat, emulating a race towards the end of a relationship on the premise of a misunderstanding.
RAAVE TAPES add the modern classic “cutting off bad people” song to their discography with track nine, ‘Heard It All, Big Man’. A dramatically modulated synth builds into the chorus, which drops with a smooth bassline that emulates the rollercoaster ride that the titular ‘Big Man’ has taken everyone on. With lyrical gems of advice including “Don’t tell me you’ll be better, just get your shit together”, this is the perfect song to send to that special someone who you can’t wait to get away from.
Leaning further into the alternative pop sphere, RAAVE TAPES exercises their ‘Patience’ with track ten. Fuelled by a sultry bassline with a bright beat drop after the chorus, ‘Patience’ lyrically tells tales of bees making honey and the chaos of life that just needs a little of the titular wonder. Rather than leaning into the grimy, darker production that we’ve come to love from this act, we are greeted by a clean, almost artificial leaning pop beat, complimented by a shiny tambourine.
RAAVE TAPES revisit the ever-present theme of loss and saying goodbye with track eleven, titled ‘1000 People In The Room’. Eastley takes the reigns with vocals on this track, singing lyrics of drive-through coffees and sleeping in spare rooms, with a cheeky ad-lib heralding in the iconic beat drop. ‘1000 People In The Room’ is another track on this album which handles significant and widespread emotions in a mature light, exemplifying distance from petulance evident in tracks such as ‘Sin Bin’.
Closing off this debut album of hit after hit is track twelve, titled ‘Wake Up Next To You’. This song relieves audiences from the chaotic nature of previous tracks, with a very subdued opening and classic pop chorus. Where track eleven was Eastley’s chance to shine, this track’s captivating vocals are solely attributed to O’Connell. With a dreamy synth throughout, ‘Wake Up Next To You’ closes the album in a lighter tone, as if the club lights signalling audiences to carry on with their nights.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Tour Supporting STUMPS w/ The Tullamarines
TICKETS
Friday, 5th of April – Crown & Anchor, Adelaide SA
Saturday, 6th of April – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC
Saturday, 13th of April – The Brightside, Brisbane QLD
Saturday, 20th of April – Factory Theatre, Sydney NSW
Friday, 26th of April – Mojo’s, Fremantle WA
