Today marks the release of the second long player by Melbourne-based four piece, The Stroppies. Recorded at the start of 2022, Levity finds the band tackling life in the most locked-down city in the world with their now characteristic brand of whimsical odd-pop brilliance.
The official line might be that Levity is The Stroppies second album, though the two eight-song records that fall either side of that are substantial documents in their own right, important in contextualising the band’s gentle evolution since their debut in 2017. The vocal trade-off between bassist Claudia Serfaty and guitarist/keyboardist Gus Lord has been a constant across those records, earworm merchants with a knack for a canny phrase and a wink of the eye, a winning trait alive and well across these ten tracks. Where the most notable shift has occurred is in the muscularity of the songs, a little more motorik steel to what are ostensibly sideways spun pop songs, an infectious amalgam of Slates-era Fall, Chris Knox wonky melodicism and XTC archness. Sideways, sometimes, all of the time, as someone once opined…
As well as CD and digital versions, Levity is released on a few different vinyl formats – a standard black pressing, a transparent edition, and, much like with previous records Whoosh and Look Alive, a very limited white vinyl pressing with a bonus secret 7″. The latter is exclusively available via Bandcamp, the Tough Love online shop and Rough Trade in an edition of 500
Watch the videos for ‘The Perfect Crime’ here and ‘Smilers Strange Politely’ here.
Buy/stream/download Levity here
