Grinspoon’s capacity for high-impact riffing and vocal catharsis is undiminished on the band’s first full-length in a dozen years. Considering that the quartet emerged from Lismore, New South Wales as grunge bled into alt-metal in the mid 1990s, this eighth studio album impressively continues the kinetic potential they found in the overlap. Singer/guitarist Phil Jamieson wastes little time before pushing his delivery to the limit, alternately screaming and singing through lead guitarist Pat Davern’s rapid-fire punk and stoner-rock flourishes of “(ILYSM)”. That song also picks up where 2012’s Black Rabbits—named after rhyming slang for “bad habits”—left off in terms of celebrating the band’s chaotic lust for life. “We’re together and we’re drunk as fuck,” repeats Jamieson in an unabashed rallying cry. But despite all the snideness and swagger here, Grinspoon make sure to balance muscular throwbacks with proper ballads like “4, 5 & 7” and “Underground”, not just giving Jamieson’s vocal cords a rest but injecting some corrective vulnerability. The production from Holy Holy’s Oscar Dawson, who contributed to Jamieson’s 2022 solo debut Somebody Else, also deepens the textural offerings, from the Sabbath-y vocal effects on “This Love” to the mellower psych wobble of “Blood on the Snow”. “Never Say Never” even has it both ways, sneaking in a moment of damning self-judgement with the line “I’m a lonely clown with no makeup” before Grinspoon launch right back into their throttling attack.