Ball Park Music

Formed around Sam Cromack’s bright-eyed songwriting, Brisbane indie rockers Ball Park Music present as effortlessly cheery, even when brandishing pointed lyrics. On their 2011 debut album, Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs, Cromack questions the promises of religion on the handclap-laden “It's Nice To Be Alive”—-a romantic reminder to appreciate the here and now—and cites ungrateful cafe customers on the pleasantly snide “Rich People Are Stupid”. The band have preserved that balance between earnestness and snarkiness across their discography, even while graduating to lusher expanses or cramming extra melodic layers into a single song (see 2017’s rollicking “Exactly How You Are”). Cromack’s clear, pleading voice shines most of all on 2020’s “Cherub”, a sparse folk-pop ballad that drifts along on ghostly vocal harmonies before driving home its emotional punch with a prolonged and riotous climax. No wonder it became a career-high breakout more than a decade into the band’s lifespan.