Review by Charlotte Poynton
When you’re an astronaut (or at least, close enough to one), a qualified actor who has graduated from NIDA, and a victim of Thelma Plum peer pressuring you to release a song, you’d start to think that you’re peaked in your career. Alex The Astronaut has ticked all of these things off their list, alongside packing out Black Bear Lodge with ease during their sole BIGSOUND showcase performance, and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. This past week, Alex has released Rage And All Its Friends, featuring 6 tracks that address a variety of complex emotions.
Following Alex’s sophomore album release of How To Grow A Sunflower Underwater in 2022, Rage And All Its Friends is an EP that stands as a collaborative project, which has enabled Alex The Astronaut to develop a fresh perspective on their artistry. On the inspiration for this release, Alex shared “Last year, I was a cranky, sad mess. Everything seemed to be going wrong – my relationships, my career, my family. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I started writing”.
Alex The Astronaut has always been a personal favourite artist of mine whose music has been so dear to me throughout my raging adolescent years, and its clear to see their growth throughout this EP, making the perfect listening experience for long-time fans, first-timers, and everyone in between. On what audiences are intended to take away from the album, our favourite actor/astronaut shared “I want people to hear these songs and laugh at themselves, or cry with their friends, or do what they need to do to process what’s happened to them. It’s life! Be in it!”. If you’re ready to do all of the above, read on for a track-by-track review.
Numb
With a haunting piano chord progression leading us into a lyrical rebellion against your rawest feelings, ‘Numb’ is a prime example of Alex The Astronaut’s trick of pairing a heartachingly honest story with a cathartically chaotic musical landscape. An absolute gem of a phrase became stuck in my mind after my first listen; with “let’s wiggle under artificial light, ‘cause with you I feel alive” becoming my new favourite set of lyrics. A song about processing a vivid emotional landscape, ‘Numb’ was written whilst on a train ride through Italy, a process which Alex describes best as “very therapeutic”.
Cold Pizza
Any long-time fan of Alex The Astronaut knows of their love and admiration for the legendary Paul Kelly. Given this, their collaboration on ‘Cold Pizza’ is an “absolute childhood dream come true” for Alex, and a dream song for all listeners too. The first track of the EP run, ‘Cold Pizza’ introduced audiences to the tone of Rage And All Its Friends and comforted those experiencing the insurmountable weight of the word ‘goodbye’. Breaking through the whisper of all other break-up songs, Alex uses bold imagery and blatantly honesty to create this breath of fresh honesty and mature reflection on a relationship’s untimely demise.
Road Rage
In a classically Australian move, Alex The Astronaut found themselves releasing their pent-up anger at fellow drivers through acts of ‘Road Rage’. Inspired by the pure rage and frustration during the COVID aftermath, Alex sings of hurting both those you love and strangers around you due to a plethora of unresolved emotions. ‘Road Rage’ is the result of yet another dream team collaboration, this track being produced by Gordi during chaotic late-night studio sessions.
If You Have To Go
If you could trust anyone to identify a good pop-centric song right now, it would be ARIA award winner of ‘Best Pop Release’, Troye Sivan. Written at his World Pride writing camp in 2023, ‘If You Have To Go’ moved Sivan and fellow campmates to tears after Alex debuted the track, with Alex recalling “I guessed we were onto something”. ‘If You Have To Go’ focuses on the process of loss, a certified friend to rage, and features a milestone with Alex The Astronaut’s first-ever guitar solo.
Change
With lyrics including “The times haven’t changed all that much”, ‘Change’ acts as a reprisal to the themes introduced in 2016’s ‘Already Home’, as Alex sings of social injustices and the current backwards progression of society. Alex The Astronaut is no stranger to soundtracking a social movement, with their iconic ‘Not Worth Hiding’ becoming an unofficial theme song of the 2016 same sex marriage campaign. Drawing inspiration from Audre Lorde, this song was written with Lisa Mitchell in an amplification of the voices that are often overlooked by politics.
Actually The End
Fittingly closing off the EP is ‘Actually The End’, capturing the whirlwind of emotions that come with the closure of a relationship that held you for the longest time. This song immediately appeals to my inner Swiftie, as this song is a direct contrast of Swift’s ‘Come Back…Be Here’, particularly the themes of longing, loss, and a lover imagined to be in London. ‘Actually The End’ was written in collaboration with Benjamin Francis Leftwich, and stands as a sombre breath of acceptance after all previous fits of rage experiences on the EP.
If Rage And All Its Friends resonated with you, be sure to support Alex The Astronaut by streaming the EP or purchasing the CD or Vinyl. Furthermore, if you want to cathartically sing about your rage in a crowd, I recommend that you catch Alex The Astronaut live at Woodford Folk Festival this new year.
