The Dichotomy of Fame: The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ fourth studio album celebrates hedonism while tackling fears

On their fourth studio album, SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound (2021), The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets combine poppy hooks, layered psychedelic textures, and hard riff-based alternative rock, comfortably leaning into a heavier sound while staying true to the band’s more experimental roots. Riding the wave of Australian psychedelia popularized by giants Tame Impala and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the band is steadily building a growing fanbase across the pond and proudly staking their claim in the scene. SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound, exudes this confidence and pushes into the realm of sold-out stadium rock. 

The album opens with the dreamy track “Big Dijon,” a collage of swirling layers of strings, finger-picked guitar, and distorted vocals. While it is only a minute long, the track contains softer elements that are lacking in many of the other tracks on the album and has a sonic texture that contrasts beautifully with the rest of the work. As the song progresses, the intensity builds and with the repeated lyrics “Here it comes,” the next track begins. 

The second track “Tally-Ho” is much more indicative of the album’s mood and pace. It is loud, fast, and driving, with riff-heavy dirty-toned guitar and crashing drums. After the first chorus there is a hard-hitting breakdown, one of the best on the album. It is followed by a screaming guitar solo that tests the boundaries of the instrument, pushing higher and higher until it ends abruptly with the sound of glass shattering. The intensity of the moment is fleeting as the listener is soon enveloped in the catchy melody of the bridge, which is nearly impossible not to sing along with. 

Throughout the album, the transitions between tracks are often seamless and this is especially notable between the third and fourth tracks: “Sawtooth Monkfish” and “Tripolasaur.”

Photo by Chloe Jade Miller

 The immaculate transitions coupled with the similar tempos of most songs, results in a feeling of breathlessness as one runs alongside the never-relenting drive of the album. 

“Mr. Prism” has another satisfying breakdown and impressive layering in backing vocals and samples. “The Terrors” has a surprisingly soft chordal chorus that feels like a brief break from the intensity of the album, an effect I wish occurred more often in the first five tracks. The band seems to have grown more comfortable with sampling and many of the tracks on the second half of the album begin with interesting distorted electronic samples. Overall, the vocals throughout the album have the high compression iconic to the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ sound. Similarly, the guitar work and tones on the album stay very true to the band’s past work.

While the band has comfortably grown into a heavier grungier alt-rock sound that was first recognizable in the hit “Cornflake” off of the band’s first album, High Visceral, Prt. 1 (2016), SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound, lacks some of the development and variety of previous albums. The band’s “psychedelic” namesake comes out in the two interlude tracks “More Glitter” and “Round the Corner,” but the occasional dreamy slow jams present on previous releases are absent, leaving listeners who are familiar with the band’s discography unsatisfied. The closest we get is the album closer, “The Tale of Gurney Gridman,” a hard hitting rock song-turned-ballad that proves the band’s capability to write complex and well developed works.  

Perhaps as the band’s name suggests, the album is a good time if one doesn’t hold it under too close of scrutiny. At its best, the album is a fun, hard, and loud time, but it suffers from its predictability and somewhat formulaic song structures. In many ways, its strengths are its weaknesses. SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound is heavy, loud, and driving but lacks the development and variety of standout albums.

However, while the musical ideas are somewhat predictable, the album’s duality comes out in the lyrics, which experiment with both a celebration of hedonism and fears of addiction. 

“Tally-Ho” is a celebration of substance use and the god-like state of mind that comes with it: 

“More alcohol, caviar, carry on with our fluid conversation

On matadors, sycamore, furthermore

I establish ground for what is zero, patio, chemical basis

One more line of avalanche-winterland-handicap

Bleeding from the nostril”

However, the album also tackles the flip side, dealing with heavier themes of addiction and growing old. The layering of screaming guitars and talking vocal samples at the end of “Mango Terrarium” conveys the dichotomy of fame and the rockstar lifestyle, the lyrics contemplating addiction and fears of growing old: 

“I wonder what I can do without drugs, 

Hide away for the rest of my life, 

I‘d be left collecting dust for so long, 

And no consequence, live without all relevance, 

And grow old in my own vacuum forevеr”

Overall the album is a somewhat predictable but still welcome addition to The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ discography. As a result of the album’s driving pace, many of the subtleties were lost on my first listen as I struggled to keep up with the charging guitars and distorted vocals. However, on my second and third listens, the album’s softer side became more evident as I continued to unravel the complexities of the themes and instrumental layering. Perhaps that is yet another one of the album’s dichotomies; despite the eager pace, I urge listeners to listen slowly, peel back the layers, and appreciate the album’s surprising complexity.

Article by Lily Ramus