- On last year’s breakthrough, self-titled album, Brisbane synth-pop four-piece Cub Sport redefined their status as a band, moving from being indie-pop darlings to a group with the potential to reconsider genre and gain an international cult following. Now they’re back with their fifth studio album LIKE NIRVANA, which not only looks past the visions of their previous records but transcends them entirely.
There’s a moment, exactly halfway through the new album, where Cub Sport interject a seven- minute long, auto-tuned ballad. The track Break Me Down features fellow Brisbane pop singer Mallrat and provides an integral heart to the record. It’s not the first moment in LIKE NIRVANA to feel like a powerful and genuine artistic statement but provides a perfect example of Cub Sport as a band feeling absolutely free and artistically unbound.
LIKE NIRVANA finds a balance between lead singer Tim Nelson’s angelic falsetto, and equally stunning desire to experiment with autotune. Similarly, the strong vocal presence on the record finds guitars less present in the dynamic of the record, instead replaced by dazzling synthesisers and drums. There are still moments where this instrumentation takes centre stage like the gritty, Hole inspired leads single Confessions; where lyrics take aim at toxic masculinity and society’s gender binary.
Despite all of this experimentation, Cub Sport don’t lose sight of their roots. I Feel Like I Am Changin finds Nelson beginning to romanticise Brisbane and the “mismatched houses [and] severe sunset” that make him smile and feel high. Likewise, Best Friends which opens with flickering synths that recalls Oblivion by Grimes, sees Nelson namedrop Brisbane’s southside and reflect on his former occupation in dentistry; all background music in a ballad to his bandmate and now husband, Sam Netterfield.
Through embracing a soulful, downtempo energy and finding the freedom to experiment musically, Cub Sport’s fifth record LIKE NIRVANA is like nothing they’ve ever done before.
- Sean Tayler.