On Nov. 29, the Australian alternative, indie duo Good Morning released their seventh album and their second this year. Unlike their first release, which runs at 50 minutes, “The Accident” is a short album with only a 31 minute run time, split over nine songs. With varying lengths throughout the album, the shortest song lasts only one minute and 21 seconds and the longest lasts eight minutes and 12 seconds.
The project uses the first song, “Baby Steps,” to ease listeners into the duo’s alternative sound. The beginning of this track feels more like talking with a groove than actual singing, but it works really well with the beat and clever lyrics. Once the music picks up, around the halfway point, the whole vibe of the song shifts, becoming more intense while listeners are introduced to their singing voice.
“Baby Steps” manages to cover the heavy topic of needing to live up to people’s expectations in a fun, boppy way. This was done by using lyrics like “hope the boss don’t see, think less of me” and “could anyone just like us?” over a bright indie beat.
The next song, “A Telephone Rings,” fully submerges listeners into the duo’s music style, following the upbeat feeling with lyrics that tell a story. As mentioned in the lyrics, “A Telephone Rings” is “another song about trying,” telling a story about doing as best as possible.
Skipping ahead, “Peaches” tells a beautiful story of love, dependence and the need for space to be able to grow. This story is told over a much slower, almost sad and longing guitar. The feeling is emphasized by the flute, played by contributing artist Hank Clifton-Williamson, that comes in halfway through the song.
The duo has other musicians play different songs throughout the album. This addition really adds to the complexity and makes the whole album that much better.
“Thrills Of The Family Man” brings listeners back to the buoyant groove, featuring Glenn Blair on the saxophone. In this song the duo empathizes with a member of a struggling family, repeating, “My heart still beats for the family man.” It again follows “Good Morning”’s approach of telling a sad story and disguising those feelings with a beat that has the audience bobbing their head.
Track seven, “The Grateful Dead,” is much more eerie sounding with talk-singing over a fuzzy beat and angsty lyrics. It tells a story of mixed signals, love and personal issues in a much different manner than the songs leading up to it. “The Grateful Dead” adds an extra level of complexity to the band’s sound and style in a darker way than the audience is used to.
The shortest song on the album “I Can’t Make It Up To You” breaks up the album with a primarily instrumental sound. The instrumental, making use of Blair’s saxophone again, is only interrupted by the lyrics “Can’t make it up to you” repeated four times throughout the track.
While this song is good, it feels like an interlude that should be closer to the middle of the album, not the second-to-last track. It makes the album feel like it’s missing a second half and it’s almost like the album loses steam at this point, having a break right before the final song on the album.
However, the closing track manages to pick up the slower beats and breaks from the two tracks before it. “Soft Rock Band” is the longest track on the album and brings listeners back to the usual “Good Morning” style. The duo recounts a life story over a bright, fun instrumental that features Blair’s saxophone yet again along with Nicole Thibault on trombone.
This story is portrayed through explanations of what their parents did, everything they’ve been through and what they are now, broken up with the lyrics “Oh, I might have seen it all” and “I know there’s still so much to go.” While it’s a long track, they used every bit of it to tell a beautiful story of the ups and downs in life and really made the full eight minutes worth listening to.
Overall, “The Accident” is an amazing album to put on in the background while cleaning or doing homework, but also one that can be paid attention to with intricate stories to read further into. With the use of contributing artists, they were able to elevate their sound and make the album that much better. While it is a little disappointing that it’s only 31 minutes, their discography is filled with many other projects that have a similar vibe to fill the void.
