A new Ocean Grove music day is a good day! The Odd World collective are back with “Junkie$”, following on from the effervescent “Ask For The Anthem”, which hasn’t left my listening since it released in February. The new song comes intended as a message to Ocean Grove fans – the “junkies” – inviting us to embrace what the band are sharing and how they’re deciding to share it.
Elaborating on this, frontman Dale Tanner shared that “Junkie$” is intended to reaffirm what was thematically shared in “Ask For The Anthem”: “We are who we are – scars and all – and that listeners should come to expect the unexpected with Ocean Grove – always.” Dale also shared that the new single was written “from the very same studio session mojo” as the previous single.
“Everybody looking at us like we’re strangers”
“Junkie$” comes with lyrical defense and a sense of having to prove themselves and their changes, but from where I’m sitting, “Junkie$” isn’t sonically jarring or unexpected at all from the Melbourne quartet. It has a lighter introduction than might be expected, but fat riffs and rap-styled vocals have been a fixture for Ocean Grove since “Lights on Kind of Lover”, at least. The nod to “Thunderdome” from The Rhapsody Tapes asking “are you with it?” forms another connection, as does the vocal tone and leading lyric of the chorus; hooking firmly into “Lights on Kind of Lover” again. That grunge-esque nasal style of singing has been a familiar fixture across anthemic songs of The Rhapsody Tapes.
All this to say that for me, “Junkie$” goes down easily, and for all the weird and wonderful things I’ve loved about this band, this new song is a continuation of that flavourful progression. The track rolls forward fluidly and as with “Glass Gloss”, comes with some eeriness as well as determination.
And if it’s too weird? Wait for the peak of the song at its bridge and throw yourself around to this for a bit, before it comes to a dreamy and satisfying close with a final chorus and beautiful guitar solo. I’m with it! What do you think?
[Ocean Grove photo credit: Ed Mason]