Ball Park Music

9/10

Ball Park Music just get better. Puddinghead is their third album within two years, they're touring, again (do they ever stop?) and they've just guest programmed Rage. This young Brisbane five-piece have shown everyone they're here to stay.

Puddinghead starts with single "She Only Loves Me When I'm There" and for the first minute or so, you could be forgiven for thinking you've stumbled upon a Radiohead album. The intro is slowly drawn out before Ball Park Music's energy comes through and starts a jumpy, catchy riff. The hook ("She only loves me when I'm there, ooh oooh,") is classic Ball Park Music and the harmonies between Sam Cromack and bass player Jennifer Boyce are perfect, as always. These two compliment each other through every song they sing.

"Next Life Already" is a bit of a filler - it doesn't have any elements that make it stand out from the rest of the album. "I just want to float downstream, I just want to forget everything..." isn't a great line, but it's what the song is built around. The guitar riff is driving and the harmonies are gorgeous, but the song itself feels rushed - much like the sentiment in the lyrics "I just want to get to the next life already...".

"A Good Life is the Best Revenge" is one of the better tracks on the album. That jaunty, punchy riff that starts things off makes the song. Cromack's voice is deeper on this track than the rest of the album and it's great to hear some contrast. There's some darkness and a hint of anger in this track, the lyrics "A good life is the best revenge," is obviously direct advice to anyone who's been hurt or disappointed by another. The shift to the tempo and the funky guitar work, along with the keyboard solo outro, adds new layers and elements to this already impressive track.

It's not all energy and fun on this album though; "Teenage Pie" takes things down a notch to a ballad and helps to show their range and contrast. The guitar work on this album is impressive. I've never associated 'technical' or 'outstanding' guitar with Ball Park Music until now, but the quality and riffs of production on Puddinghead is a step up from what we've heard previously.

Cromack's voice in the intro of "Trippin' The Light Fantastic" is almost mournful but it quickly has a kick of energy and evolves into a huge track. The arrangement on this song should feel muddled and crowded. The combination of brass, strings, guitar, keys, bass and drums with the changes to the rhythm and tempo, along with the robotic sound effect on "Trippin' the light fantastic" is a lot to take in, but somehow it works! It's easily the most interesting track on the album.

The best thing about this band is their ability to combine sad experiences with a helluva beat and turn them into pop songs. The subject matter on Puddinghead is at times melancholy and sad, but it doesn't make you feel melancholy or sad. In fact, it makes you want to dance. How the line "Everything is shit except my friendship with you" can make you happy is beyond me. It's a depressing idea turned into an anthemic pop song. "Struggle Street" is the same; the organ gives it a dark, foreboding feel and even makes you remember the solo in "Light My Fire" in a couple of places. "Here I am on Struggle Street again," is a very depressing line when you hear it on its own but somehow, you can sing along to the song and still feel happy.

I love Puddinghead for showing off the talent you experience when you go to see Ball Park Music live. They bring exuberance, light and enthusiasm to every live show and have managed to do the same on this album. It shows how much hard work can pay off for a band if they remain persistent. Their songwriting has matured, the quality of production, instrumentation and arrangements must be applauded and of course, Cromack and Boyce's voices are a huge part of their songs. If you haven't had the good fortune to listen to this album yet, or see the band live, go and do that as soon as you can. Ball Park Music are a talented, important band. - The AU Review

It’s been a quick rise for Brisbane’s energetic five-piece Ball Park Music. In 2011 they released their popular debut album Happiness And Surrounding Suburbs, closely followed by their second, Museum, just over a year later, while touring intermittently. At long last – well, just under two years – Ball Park drop LP number three Puddinghead, and for what seems like the first time in their career, they have time to relax and refine.
Distancing themselves even further from jovial larrikinisms, Puddinghead’s 11 tracks gently nudge the breaks, combining the sonic capabilities of Museum with the storytelling clarity of their debut. The band have experimented with interesting genre-shifts, A Good Life Is The Best Revenge sporting funk guitar and a rolling chorus, while Cocaine Lion could best be described as a throwback to ‘90s indie rock. The solid through-line, however, is the ease of Sam Cromack’s voice. Without really belting at all, the frontman tells 11 stories, all unique in form but linked through a mature sense of clarity.
Not to be misunderstood, there are still much-loved spurts of liveliness, She Only Loves Me When I’m There perhaps the closest resemblance to BPM circa-2008, and Trippin’ The Light Fantastic gets the toes tapping. However, both still possess a genuine honesty that could have only really come with that little bit of extra time in the studio.
According to the Bard, a ‘puddinghead’ may be one who fumbles the most basic tasks, but Ball Park prove a balanced and centred approach suits them just fine. - The Music

Ball Park Music review: Geek pop with a grab-me-now heart

Ball Park Music: a winning combination if you like your brain tickled without having to pretend you're too cynically cool for school.

I was asked a fair question during this show by someone who had left her near-death-with-lurgy bed on the northern beaches to be here: “How could anyone be at this gig and not be happy?”
There wasn't going to be an argument from the hundreds of clean, neat and polite core fans (drawn, it seems, from the last years of high school/first years of university) who sang lustily, beamed mightily and bounced indefatigably throughout the show. You weren't likely to get an objection from the greying/fuller-figured types dotted about the room either, most of whom seemed just as likely to sing, beam and bounce – albeit with a bit less spring – with these big-time melodies.
And no word of contradiction would come from the mouth of the five-year-old being held up a step below me, who either knew every word of Surrender ("It's OK, it's all right / It's true terror in the middle of the night / Give in if it makes you feel better /So surrender, so surrender") or was prepared to live it out in expressive dance that was one part Hot Potato and two parts Peter Garrett. (Who? Ask your mum to show you, kid.)
Like so many of the songs from this Brisbane five-piece, Surrender posits that it's possible to write geek pop – slightly awkward yet always clever; hiding little yet not embarrassed – with a big “grab me now” heart. These songs want to be liked, throw themselves at you, really, but they come with such wit and unshakeable enjoyment that you would have to actively search for reasons to say no.
There is a melange here of pre-gloom Blur and a non-ironic Pavement, maybe with a dash of early Whitlams. In other words, a winning combination if you like your brain tickled without having to pretend you're too cynically cool for school. (Though it must be said that their fondness for Elton John's I'm Still Standing, as revealed in their curated set for Rage later in the night, may be where I have to draw the line.)
So, the fizzing pop of the oldish Fence Sitter and the brand-new Everything is Shit Except My Friendship with You set us for bounce; the sly charm of It's Nice to be Alive and the droll insights of Happy Healthy Citizen of the Developed World Blues made us smile; and the snaky allure of Struggle Street, with its soul vamp keyboard riff balanced by space-rock backing vocals, and the not-quite-funk of She Only Loves Me When I'm There, moved our hips.
Then, to complete a show of kinda dorky /kinda brilliant “no such thing as guilty pleasure, only pleasure” moments, it seemed mad – keep in mind they effectively operate with two vocalists – but appropriate to finish with Bohemian Rhapsody. It was done without a nod and wink and it was done without faltering, gong and all.
I dips me lid. And the five-year-old nearly blew hers off with enjoyment. - Sydney Morning Herald

Ball Park Music's 'Puddinghead' a confident step forward.

This Brisbane band has hit another home run with a triumphant third album full of stomping songs.

"Puddinghead” is an insult out of Shakespeare, something Ball Park Music songwriter Sam Cromack picked up in a high school English class. To hear the band explain it, a puddinghead is someone who messes up even the simplest of tasks. Hearing it, Cromack was tickled by the word’s quaintness, and it became a private joke with friends.

The title is a perplexing one for the band’s third record: it describes neither Cromack nor the album. There is, it must be said, nothing wrong-footed about either. Self-produced, self-directed and self-aware, Puddinghead will come to be seen as a career-defining moment for the Brisbane band. It marks their return to pop and also, happily, a return to form.

Apart from being the band’s principal songwriter, Cromack has also taken on the role of album producer. Self-produced albums are more commonly made by solo artists and for very good reason: they never have to compromise and have no one to argue with but themselves. When an honest-to-goodness band submits itself to the direction and vision of one member it can be a recipe for disaster and discord. It’s a testament to Cromack’s talent and to his band’s confidence in him that rather than being a disaster Puddinghead is a triumph.

Not that Museum, their previous album, was a disappointment. Far from it, particularly for this listener. Museum was a huge leap forward for the band, both sonically and artistically. But it was a much more introspective and moody beast, quite at odds with the devil-may-care personality the band had shown on their previous recordings and in their relentlessly boisterous live shows.

It has been a gradual but seemingly inevitable climb to success for Ball Park Music. Forming six years ago at university, their first independent EP received powerful support from Triple J. That relationship became even cosier with the release of their next EP, featuring the concert favourite “iFly”. Mutual admiration between the band and Triple J soon blossomed into a full-blooded romance when they released their debut album, Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs. Many of its songs enjoyed high rotation on the youth network, and listeners later voted the album into the top 10 of the station’s end-of-year poll.

Happiness perfectly captured the band’s combination of nervous energy and juicy pop. Though filled with anthemic crowd-pleasers, it was executed with an idiosyncratic panache that promised big things. Cue their new album.

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Puddinghead's optimism

The opening track and first single, “She Only Loves Me When I’m There”, begins with a poignant vocoder that harks back to the textures first explored on Museum. It isn’t long before the rest of the band springs into action and the song transforms into stomping pop, something akin to the Dandy Warhols if the Dandys were in a particularly buoyant mood.

“Next Life Already” continues the up-tempo flavour. Actually, the whole album is briskly paced. Even the slower songs have an optimistic spin. Whether it’s a result of keyboard washes, hummable guitar figures or vocal hooks, there is always something to counter even the most downcast lyric. “Next Life Already” is what is known in the tunesmith trade as a “list song”: it contains a series of images that illustrate, or contrast, the song’s theme. Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” are two notable examples. It contains the first of many religious references. God, Satan and the Holy Ghost all get a shoutout on the album but, speaking as an avowed atheist, I never detected a hint of preaching. Whether Sam is using these images metaphorically or to indicate a deeper faith, I just can’t tell. All I know is there is plenty on the album to discomfit a Hillsong happy clapper.

Four songs in, “Teenage Pie” gives us a chance to catch our breath after all the exuberance. It is probably the first song I could confidently predict won’t be a single – not for any drop in quality, but because there is such an embarrassment of riches on this album when it comes to radio choices. None more so than the next song, “Trippin’ the Light Fantastic”. We are back in Dandy Warhols territory again, with an infectious wooh-ooh-ooh chorus hook. I’m also reminded of dance-pop maestros Scissor Sisters – a combination roughly equivalent to pop heaven.

At this point on the album I hear some explicit Beatles influence – namely Abbey Road and its celebrated medley, or suite, on side two. “Trippin’ the Light Fantastic”, “Cocaine Lion” and “Everything Is Shit Except My Friendship with You” are all linked sonically and possibly thematically. Is it a tale of drugs, dissolution and disillusion – the rush, the comedown and the inevitable regret? Perhaps. The phrase “Cocaine Lion” is apparently another of Cromack’s private jokes and we aren’t meant to infer from it that he is a budding Scarface.

Alternatively, could this be a three-song portrait of a relationship – rush, comedown and regret being equally apropos? The final lyric of “Everything Is Shit” is “Fruit falls on my head and I don’t discover anything at all”. The ghost of Isaac Newton is summoned but Cromack could also be ruminating on something as banal as a post-gig food fight in the dressing room. The deli platter provides plenty of ammunition but not much food for thought. Without knowing anything specific about the author’s intentions, that explanation is as good as any, I suppose.

“Struggle Street” is a slight misfire and feels like a shotgun wedding between two incompatible songs. The Beatlesque-medley structure here makes the whole actually less than the sum of its parts. That said, the melodies are so good you almost forgive the song’s repetitive seesawing.

But the final three songs, “Error Playin”, “Polly Screw My Head Back On” and “The Girls from High School”, find the band back on surer ground, and they conclude proceedings in rousing fashion. Lavish keyboards, bang-on harmonies and those ever-gorgeous Cromack melodies – so damned catchy they pop into my head constantly throughout the day.

Indeed, it’s hard to pick flaws in Cromack’s songwriting, arrangement or production skills. One of the few criticisms I will make is that at times his lyrics can be deliberately opaque. I don’t mind being challenged to create my own narrative from a few disconnected images, but occasionally I get the annoying feeling that “you had to be there” is the only explanation of a song’s meaning. To quote Cromack’s own words, sometimes “fruit falls on my head and I don’t discover anything at all”.

In three albums, Ball Park Music haven’t put a foot wrong. On their debut, Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs, the band came off like an ungainly teenager, jumping out of their skin with impetuous energy and know-it-all insouciance. Museum was their world-weary welcome to adulthood, feeling old before their time while still too young to know better. With the new album, third time’s a charm. It’s obvious Ball Park Music have truly grown up and are ready to take on the world. Puddinghead is the optimistic sound of a confident, mature band, happy in their work and happy to show it. - Dave Faulkner (Hoodoo Gurus) for The Saturday Paper

BALL PARK FUCKING MUSIC. By the time they were due to begin the crowd was, well, - bonkers. At one point my face was being squished between a tall man's elbow and someone's boobs (if you are that girl, I am very very sorry, but also not really) and I have a few other injuries. I have bruises on my chest from when I was semi-punched in the ribcage - the nail on my big toe split in half - I have no idea how that happened - and I have a bunch of odd-shaped bruises on my back. I don't remember much of the beginning because I was trying not to die but I do remember being ridiculously happy.

I surrendered to the death-trap that you could call a mosh after about 3 songs when opening chord of Surrender kicked in (it was a beautifully ironic moment that I will cherish forever).

Standing up the back with free room to dance and be merry, I was able to really take the show in, and very quickly that warm fuzzy feeling I've become accustomed to, creeped back - stronger than ever.

Their energy was carefree but they were clinically perfect in their flawless performance. Even the songs from Puddinghead that I didn't know were inexplicably precise. Alligator, ifly, Tripping The Light Fantastic and Fence Sitter were perfect but I have to admit, my body was NOT prepared for the encore.

After a very short amount of time, the 5 members returned to the stage to greet a screaming, squeling and hollering sold-out Metro Theatre and the opening words "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy " sent everyone into a frenzy of 'omg omgz and holy shit holy shitz is this even really omg happeningz?'
Singing along and gesticulating every lyric was a religious experience and while Ball Park Music played Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, the souls of 1350 people combined for an extravaganza of passion and excitement. I've never seen and will never see a better encore performance.

Driving home it came to me that Ball Park Music were, and will always be right. No matter how cliched it sounds, it really is Nice To Be Alive. - All Ages Concerts