QUIVERS

"Oyster Cuts," the fourth album and Merge Records debut from Quivers, shows that the Melbourne, Australia-based band swims in the kind of emotions most people are afraid to get lost in.

Quivers' oversized guitar pop shimmers like the surface of an ocean, beneath which lies a reef that is alternately beautiful and painful, its features alien and sharp enough to wound. Driven by melodies sometimes reminiscent of Galaxie 500 and The Pretenders, Quivers make music that is tender and hard, forcing the listener to dive in again and again, each song opening up a new emotional vista. "Oyster Cuts" is sunshine pop with blood in the water.

The losses and loves that have shaped Quivers' music since their beginnings - the sudden loss of a brother in the fractured optimism of 'We'll Go Riding on the Hearses' (2018) and the life in and after grief of 'Golden Doubt' (2021) - feed into 'Oyster Cuts', which is committed to moving on while accepting that some feelings, like grief, are a cycle. Crucially, Quivers are committed to moving forward together. Without the choir and strings of 'Golden Doubt', 'Oyster Cuts' is an example of what is still possible when four people - Sam Nicholson (guitars), Bella Quinlan (bass), Michael Panton (guitars) and Holly Thomas (drums) - make music together.

Through the use of tape loops - which open and close "Oyster Cuts" and circle the album like sharks - Quivers emphasize repetition, employing patterned riffs and navigating circular thoughts until they reach their limits and eventually come together to form a new song. Their dreamy, sun-washed jangle-pop has become leaner and more muscular as a result, and their sonic palette is obscured by echoes of The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen and The Durutti Column. Within this framework, Quivers break new ground as a band by adding a new dimension to their signature group vocals: Quinlan takes lead vocals on four songs, the interwoven guitars of Nicholson and Panton take center stage, and the purposeful groove of Quinlan and Thomas drives the whole thing forward.

Quivers' songs feel like long conversations between friends, in the sense that a conversation is both an act of language and a space that people occupy for each other. The first two tracks on "Oyster Cuts", "Never Be Lonely" and "Pink Smoke", take these private universes, made up of shared language, memories, snippets of song and the light of a cell phone screen in the middle of a doomscroll, and turn them into a beacon, searching lyrics ignited by massive hooks.

"All I ever wanted was a true friend / All I wanted was a friend with benefits / All I ever wanted was transcendence" Quinlan and Thomas sing at the beginning of the album, and from there "Oyster Cuts" spools out into the horizon. The four members of Quivers not only explore this space, but fill it with themselves as much as possible, tying themselves together no matter how ambiguous and messy matters of the heart can become. Every moment of catharsis that Quivers conjure from the ether is an invitation to join them. Listening to them soar where others would brood, it's impossible to resist their invitation.