The Icypoles - My World Was Made For You

There’s a sense of loving, yet ultimately knowing, naiveté to the music of Melbourne band The Icypoles. ‘My World Was Made For You’, the band’s debut album, harks to the simplistic sound of bands like indie stalwarts Beat Happening. The juvenile essence of their 1988 masterpiece ‘Jamboree’ is out here in full force, spun around into something more akin to the stylisation of a set of nursery rhymes. However, this music is often unnerving, perhaps hinting at something missing; an undercurrent of dissent is continually offset with a sunny, joyous disposition.

Perhaps it would be best to consider The Icypoles’ debut as a kind of cross between Beat Happening and the iconic New York lo-fi trio Vivian Girls, who similarly cited harmonising girl groups in their music. Likewise for The Icypoles, certain tracks, like album intro ‘You Make Me’, come across as slowed down revisions of ’50s doo-wop. Yet it’s not just simply anachronistic; their songs are lyrically peppered with brash and forthright advances or rebuffs, the latter perhaps best surmised in the grounded ‘Settle Down’.

The real highlight is the a cappella-led ‘Babies’, effortlessly distilling life into a ripping yarn. Structured around that downright compelling vocal, the music swells and reverberates around as the tale develops into something past the point of wonderment and loving ambition. The vocal disappears as the tale becomes full circle. It’s the best example of proving that this Australian quartet, half of which were once involved in the bombastic Architecture in Helsinki, have created an album that is at once charmingly disarming and delightfully subversive.