Album Review: Postblue - 'I Hope They're Praying For Me'

If Daylight delivered a lifejacket to grunge after it supposedly drowned with Nirvana’s dramatic termination in 1994, Postblue are more than doing Australia’s bit to revive its water-flooded organs. Others could argue that grunge is far from sunk, but even those people would still agree that regardless, Postblue are doing positive things for the genre. As an LP almost short enough to qualify as an EP, PostBlue’s I Hope They’re Praying For Me covers a whole lot of ground, while in the same moment, being instantly gratifying.

On 'I Hope They’re Praying For Me', surprisingly, some religious ground is covered. Not, however, in the kind of listening-heavy, specific way that Christian metalcore bands might go about it. On ‘Cross’ and ‘Honey’ the lyrics tackle religious stigma in a metaphorical way that is light and understandable, and it proves more than anything that Postblue are widening their lyrical scope.

The space left by the absence of a fourth member could have easily resulted in a fracture in the sound of the band, but as it turns out, that’s simply not the case. Songs like ‘Ugly’ and on ‘Cross’ boast a hefty bassline, which holds a steadfast, heavy tone, and the dilapidated, grinding riffs sounding ampler than ever. If there were any gaps, there’s enough fuzz, reverb and distortions to thoroughly fill them in.

'I Hope They’re Praying Me' is more than just a follow up to 'Lap Year'. Joe’s vocals are nasally and forcefully monotonous on tracks like ‘All The Babies’ and to the relief of those of us out there who are a little over the emo revival, it isn’t in any way oversaturated or too depressing. On ‘Honey’ and ‘Way To Heaven’ there is a glimpse of a catchy rhythm, admittedly a rather melancholy one, and on ‘Riley Needs Jesus’ the quiet, stormy melody is an outstanding contribution to the LP. With a killer drop and sparseness to the song writing that delivered some of the best lyrics of this year ( ‘I’m trapped inside my brain’), ‘Honey’ was the significant breadwinner on I Hope They’re Praying For Me.

The production on this record is as a whole pretty chaotic and deceptively messy, but unlike 'Lap Year', there seems to be some rhyme and reason to it all. On tracks like ‘Kids Need Jesus,’ and ‘Ugly’ Postblue appear to be exercising more of their own control over their instruments. Nevertheless, the low guitars, percussion and gritty base sound like they’re battling beneath the reverberating vocals.

In the end, the feat here isn’t the way in which Postblue adhere to the standard ‘grunge’ thing, but rather how they manage to balance what they want to achieve as a band, with continuing along the path that they lay down with Lap Year. In fact, Postblue’s Lap Year seems a world a way. In parts, this record will blow you away in a way that the band’s previous work hasn’t.

Ugly 

Cross 

Honey 

Wallow 

All The Babies 

Kids Need Jesus

Teeth  

Pig 

Way To Heaven

Riley Needs Jesus