New Music Review #8: ‘Disassociation’ by The Rions

Listen to this song, and then go and listen to it again with this fact at the front of your mind: These dudes are still in high school.

That is insane.

Everything about this band belies their age and inexperience. They sound like they’ve been touring for decades, battered and wearied by years on the road. This sounds like a glorious comeback of a legend, rather than the launch of a nascent career.

They won triple j’s Unearthed High comp this year for their belter of a track ‘Night Light’, and their follow up is even stronger.

Lyrically, ‘Disassociation’ is mature and reflective and deeply intelligent. It feels weighty, a heady dissection of the way we are all feeling after a brutal couple of years – distilled, ultimately, to: “I’m tired, but I’m doing alright”.

The last minute of the song is transcendent – one of the most urgent, layered, focused crescendos I’ve heard all year. Again, these dudes are teenagers.

For as impressive as their musicianship and lyricism is, their true secret weapon is lead singer Noah Blockley. His voice is fully developed, incredibly assured and remarkably soulful. It’s commanding, possessive and seemingly designed in a lab to bring life to the sort of powerful indie-rock anthems The Rions’ are quickly becoming renowned for.

If this is what kids have been doing during the pandemic, the world is in good hands.

And a few others:

‘Up’ by Big Skeez: A super bouncy, ridiculously charismatic tune to bump out your car windows while you’re cruising around this summer. Chest beating at its most clever.

‘Nightmare' by AViVA: A pulsating and almost claustrophobic beat, with a lilting, eerie vocal careening and vacillating throughout – imagine running through the world’s sexiest house of horrors.

'Truthfully’ by The Moving Stills: Australia has had no shortage of coastal indie-rock going around in the last few years – Spacey Jane, Lime Cordiale, Ocean Alley to name a few. But I’m not someone who thinks you can have too much of a good thing. This is a good thing. I would like more, please.