- Cub Sport have come a helluva long way since they first started gracing Brisbane stages and getting in your head with clever pop melodies. With a band name change, some serious sound development and multiple laps of the country, some might say it’s about damn time they released an album. Those people would be right, because this week the band drop This Is Our Vice, their debut record and an all round pop masterpiece. More than that though, this is ‘pop-with-a-brain.’ The concept may seem a little counter-intuitive, but it really does hold up under scrutiny here. Sure there are catchy hooks and smooth melodies, but they come with a healthy dose of self-awareness, showing the band have a much deeper understanding of the genre, beyond simply generating ear-worm singles. They've really come into their own with a well produced, mature sound that will likely be one of Australia’s best pop releases for the year.

Although the band have continued to mine what appears to be an endless supply of simple yet super catchy piano riffs, front man Tim Nelson has opted for brooding melancholy over summery optimism and this is where things start to get interesting. The sugary melodies are dulled with hypnotic synths and moody lyrics, lending much more depth than either one element could have delivered alone. Opening track Sun begins with swirling synths and builds into the kind of summery pop we’ve come to know and love from the band, but really it’s only the beginning. Latest single I Can’t Save You is where the metaphorical lyrics really fall away and straight laced story telling wins out, while It Kills Me is all about the vocal harmonies. In the middle we get Mess Me Up, a softer track where synths and other instruments take a back seat in favour of the guitar and an impressive falsetto from Nelson. Only Friend was the first taste we were given of the album late last year, and the fact that it’s actually buried in the second half is testament to how strong the rest of the material around it is. The song remains a standout of course, heaped with melancholy yet still the kind of song you want to bounce along to.

The time spent touring and really drilling down into their sound is also very obvious. For the most part Cub Sport have all but abandoned the wayward tropical pop in favour of a much more contemplative and layered sound. There have been many artists who’ve tried this before only to come of sounding rather disingenuous and more than a little pretentious but this record prevails by being able to not take anything too seriously. It’s fun but also food for thought, and any pop record that makes you think about anything at all, even for only a moment, is definitely one worth returning to.

- Clare Armstrong.