Dawn FM Album Art
By Elizabeth Chandler
Most of the time when an artist quickly draws in a larger crowd by changing their sound, they are considered a “sell out”. This is not the case with Good Morning’s new album Barnyard.
Band mates Liam Parsons and Stefan Blair are in their seventh year of playing together, and their October release certainly reflects the near decade of work the Aussie bandmates have put into their sound. Barnyard, released three months ago, still stands as their best album yet.
Six months prior to Barnyard’s release, the pair put out the double-A Side single "Mollyduker" b/w "Keep It," kicking off their partnership with US label Polyvinyl. Prior to their latest release, their sound was singularly described as “bedroom pop” and “indie rock.”
In an instagram post, the pair claimed “we made this record back in slightly simpler times at the loft chicago over five days with the lovely tom schick. it feels like it’s been a while but maybe it’s been just the exact right time.”
Blair and Parsons dropped the first Barnyard single, “Country,” in August. The dime-store banger marks a complete change in their lo-fi sound, and differentiates itself in content with its lyrics, “I got a boyfriеnd and I got a psych// I know that one really cares about mе// And, at least, that the other one tries// Sometimes I still think about dying//No, not the feeling, but the want.” The track, a verbose four minute track, closes the album with a sound you can actually dance to, a completely different soundscape from their usual ambient dreamscape.
On writing ‘Country” Parsons claimed, “At the time, I was having a rough one reconciling my life with what I had expected adult life to be. I knew that my younger self – a more virtuous, kind-hearted and patient person – would be perplexed by how I had turned out, and I felt a kind of second-hand embarrassment for myself looking over the last few years of false starts and dead ends.”
The album certainly does not begin with a false start. ’Too Young To Quit’ doubles as a personal narrative and the existentialist narrative of the album. The opener exposes Parsons and Blair from the start: it’s a soft, vulnerable beginning both in its acoustic backing and in its lyrics, “Too young to think about quitting// But too old to make any difference.”
In the album they contrast personal existential crises with larger anxieties, like the helplessness attached to climate change prevention. They playfully address this yearning/longing in their single ‘Burning’: “In the freeway and in your car// Ever just think about how fucked you are?” The single describes the Australian Government's insufficient response to the catastrophic 2019 bushfires.
Each song in between their opening and closing soundtrack echoes and mocks Kurt Vonnegut’s own existentialism in his iconic novel, Slaughterhouse-Five: “Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.” In their single ’Big Wig// Small Dog,’ for example, “Well that’s a real big wig, for such a small dog// How will he perceive light, through such thick fog?” the rebut meaninglessness with a good laugh. Though they allow themselves to sink into the musical anguish of synth, they keep their audience -- and themselves -- from jumping into the existentialist fire with an ever present streak of gentle humor.