Queer spite is a beast all its own. Our community is built as much on solidarity, care and kinship as it is on the feral adrenaline of pettiness and wrath. Hell hath no fury like a queer wronged – or, worse, mildly inconvenienced.
Melbourne “bubblegum punk” duo Cry Club latches on to this dichotomy with their energetic second record, which flits between boundless ecstasy and bare-your-teeth rage. Singer Heather Riley has a voice that meshes sweet and salty: on the lovestruck pop-punk anthem Somehow (You Still Get to Me), they channel both Paramore’s Hayley Williams and, closer to home, Grace Lawry of Melbourne’s short-lived but excellent Kissing Booth, their voice gliding against glam rock guitars.
Elsewhere, Riley delivers a snarky snarl on Bad Taste and I Want More; they deadpan in speak-sing on A Bit of Hell, and Wildfire, and crescendo to an aggressive, throaty yowl on Mirrored and the abrasive People Like Me. It’s impressive, acrobatic stuff.
This record, with its rockier palette, marks a change of pace from Cry Club’s 2020 debut album God, I’m Such a Mess, which leaned more heavily on bold, synthesised sounds and a dash of theatre kid energy. That campiness is still present on Spite Will Save Me, echoing another queer Australian artist: the Wollongong native Bec Sandridge, who blends pop-punk with 80s influences. Fittingly, Cry Club has described Somehow (You Still Get to Me) as: “What if Paul Stanley or David Lee Roth were … lesbian?”
It’s a fairly apt summation for much of this record, both in terms of pastiche and irreverence – the duo takes ownership of, and clear pleasure in, the dagginess of these hammier moments, with all the earnest glee of a tribute band. It does, on occasion, risk dipping into trite territory: Hocus Pocus begins sounding jarringly identical to Hoobastank’s The Reason, but thankfully veers away with a sparkling pop hook.
The record is also interspersed with a harder edge – see the angular post-punk guitars on A Bit of Hell and Bad Taste. The attitude comes across clearest in the album’s lyrics, which are spiked with sass and, yes, spite; Cry Club’s members have, in their own words, entered their “villain era”. But they avoid needless malice: even on the album’s angrier cuts, such as the acidic Cry About It, there’s less blame than adamance for self-protection and respect. If being a villain is simply knowing how to assert and honour your own boundaries, then maybe we all need a villain era.
That extremely online term – villain era – is one of many instances on this record where Riley and bandmate Jonathon Tooke speak in the parlance of the internet. Many of their lyrics will doubtless confound those who don’t spend every waking hour plugged into the machine. From being ghosted and left on read (Hocus Pocus) to “living rent free in your head” (People Like Me) and arguing with dudebros on Twitter (the bratty, buzzy Get Up!!!), these lyrics capture the queer, millennial zeitgeist. Such musings could be obnoxious or corny in the wrong hands, but Cry Club mostly pulls it off both with a steadfast sense of conviction and a healthy dose of irony.
This band, and record, occupies an interesting liminal space in Australian music right now: some of these well-crafted pop songs would sound right at home on commercial radio, but others are rough enough around the edges, sprinkled with enough weirdo energy, to provide a stark point of difference. There are few other bands in this country who are fearlessly leaning into pop-punk – which has largely gone out of fashion in the mainstream – let alone trying to do something new with it. Bubblegum with punk, spite with joy: together, it might just save us all.
Spite Will Save Me is out now, released independently
