Middle Kids - ‘Today We’re The Greatest’ (new album)

Review by Alan Neilson

I hate being late to a party and having only discovered the majesty of the band Middle Kids recently, I feel  I am years late to this particular knees up, as they have been releasing great records since 2017/18.  Although the upside to that is having fallen immediately in love with the lead single releases from the forthcoming ‘Today We’re The Greatest’ album (‘R U 4 Me?’, ‘Questions’ and ‘Cellophane (Brain)’) I now have their previous album and eps to listen to immediately… and it is all good; even lead singer and songwriter Hannah Joy’s solo releases from 2013.  I know the band is from Australia, but why does it take the rest of the world so long to catch up?  A problem I am acutely aware of from following their countrymen Gang of Youths, another spectacularly good Australian band that was lost somewhere over the Atlantic.

Middle Kids’ latest release ‘Today We’re The Greatest’ starts in a low key mid-tempo way with opening tracks ‘Bad Neighbours’ and ‘Cellophane (Brain)’, only kicking in halfway through the second song before ramping up the energy again on the blissed out indie-pop of ‘R U 4 Me?’ with its insistent driving rhythm and call to arms “Do not ignore me!”.

If anyone ever needed a lesson in writing a definitive pop song, then next track ‘Questions’ would be an example of how to do it.  The build up is like a perfect mathematical equation for an upwards curve, but it never feels as if that was a deliberate intention, it just naturally gathers momentum; most good pop songs sound effortlessly brilliant and this is no exception.  The release of tension almost exactly halfway through when the drums and brass burst in sends tingles across my brain and as such it fulfils the prime function of a pop song, when it ends, you want to hear that build up all over again.  Still, this is not a simple arrangement, use of syncopated claps and offbeat snare hits give it a jerky feel that may confuse or excite first-time listeners.  I am always excited to hear songs that don’t use a standard four on the floor rhythm.

The momentum built up with these banging tracks is soon halted and there is a lull after the pop rocket that is ‘Questions’, but what ‘Lost in Los Angeles’ and ‘Golden Star’ lose in vitality they more than makeup for in melody.  It does feel that the album peaks with the three lead singles coming one after another as tracks 2-4, and then there is a slow descent to the end because the dynamics in the album’s sequencing are shaped like a scalene obtuse triangle (there are those in the industry who say this is the best way to sequence an album these days but I think it is wrong).  There is still some energy in the tumbling toms of ‘Summer Hill’ and there are echoes of the wonderful Courtney Barnett in the beautiful ‘Some People Stay In Our Hearts Forever’ with the way Middle Kids also effortlessly allow a song to unravel before a listener.   ‘Run With You’ picks up the pace from the pedestrian but it doesn’t initially sparkle or leave a lasting impression.

There is a short punky burst in the song ‘I Don’t Care’ but it feels quite out of character when they throw the F bomb into the chorus and repeat the line over and over.  It is odd because everything else Middle Kids do is clever and intentional, whereas this feels dumb and naïve.  I don’t believe the phrase ‘I don’t care’ is made more powerful by the addition of ‘fucking’ (“I don’t fucking care, I gotta do what I want to”) – it just sounds like a child trying to shock.  Maybe younger fans will love screaming this out at gigs (when live music eventually happens again) and feel like they are sticking it to the man, but Middle Kids are much more rebellious than this.

‘Stacking Chairs’ also does not stand out particularly with its overused trope: ‘if the world falls apart I will be there’ – strangely this does sound less clichéd the more often you hear it.
They close the album in an understated way with the title track ‘Today We’re The Greatest’, almost as a way of subverting the arrogance in the title.  You would expect Hannah to be shouting the lyrics in a song called this, but she sings in her beautifully fragile falsetto voice and the phrase feels more like a reluctant battle cry as she follows that statement with the line, “even though we feel so small”.  It is an interesting choice of arrangement as you would expect the title song to be apex of the album rather than a polite shuffling out the door, but the album is full of surprises and unexpected turns, so showing this kind of artistic bravery has to be applauded.  The honesty of the final lyrics is “Life is gory and boring sometimes”

Having lived with the album for a few weeks now, it is clear that when you get beyond the singles, the other songs are slow burners – and these are the ones that you almost rediscover with multiple listens.  They don’t have an immediate impact it is true and many listeners might find themselves skipping them or wrongly classifying them as filler.  Just listen again for the shuffling drum beat and banjo on ‘Lost in Los Angeles’; the choir like outro of ‘Golden Star’ and its nod to Turin Breaks’ ‘Feeling Oblivion’; the nod to Stevie Nicks’ vocal and Mick’s drums in ‘Summer Hill’; and the real heartbeats at the end of ‘Run With You’.

I guess the issue for me is the track order, when I started the album at ‘Lost in Los Angeles’, with the first four tracks coming in after ‘Stacking Chairs’, there felt more of a build up to the life affirming final song .  Maybe these days labels want to grab the listener quickly rather than risk a more leisurely meandering build up. 

There is an clear progression in the band’s sound and this album sees a slight move away from the overdriven guitars of their early work.  The echoes of 90’s indie rock bands like Belly and Bettie Seveert have morphed into a more sophisticated use of instrumentation, with guitars, although present not always the focal point.  Also on previous recordings I felt that Hannah had overdone a heavy vibrato on her vocal, which seemed a little contrived, but on ‘Today We’re The Greatest’ she has found her true voice and it resonates with a rawness, an energy and total conviction.  I would place her alongside some of indie’s greatest vocalists: Carol van Dijk; Nina Persson; Harriet Wheeler; Aimee Mann; and Courtney Barnett.

Hannah has sited one of her main songwriting influences as Neil Finn and although their styles may differ, at the heart of their work is really well constructed songs; and like Crowded House, there is depth with great intelligence and emotion in the lyrics.  The band speaks of making music that loves the listener (whatever that means) and how complex making that happen actually is, when words can often be misconstrued.  They kind of clarify this by saying: “It can be easier to live dualistically, splitting the world in two -we want to be able say it’s this or it’s that, but sometimes it’s both — and can we hold both?  Can we hold the brokenness?  Can we hold the beauty?  That has definitely been a defining bit of this album, the fragility in that dance.”  If feels then that the Middles Kids are championing the grey areas in life, the difficult places where others are afraid to go because there is never anything certain there.  I applaud them for that and will watch where they explore next.

‘Today We’re The Greatest’ by Middle Kids is available from 19 March 2021 on Lucky Number

Track-list: Bad Neighbours, Cellophane (Brain), R U 4 Me?, Questions, Lost in Los Angeles, Golden Star, Summer Hill, Some People Stay In Our Hearts Forever, Run With You, I Don’t Care, Stacking Chairs, Today We’re The Greatest

Today We’re The Greatest follows the release of Middle Kids’ critically acclaimed 2018 debut, Lost Friends, which was awarded Album of the Year by Australia’s Triple J Radio and nominated for Best Rock Album at the ARIA Awards. The record also earned them support slots with the likes of Bloc Party, War on Drugs and Cold War Kids as well as several US TV show performances including Conan, Jimmy Kimmel and The Late, Late Show with James Corden.