After a lauded, debut album in the form of Displaced, Australian artist Coolonaut was lauded, born in Scotland and now rural Australia based returns and with Dark Energy, he stares unflinching at a world in crisis, with a potent follow up that crackles with raw, analogue urgency. Sounding recorded only on an 8 track tape machine, this isn’t a throwback — it’s heavy vintage gear in service to present unease, a very current sounding brew of psychedelic power pop.
Building on the outback reflections of Tales From the Black Stump, Dark Energy then plunges into far murkier, global waters. As a medical doctor whose life is spent balancing the medical and the musical, Coolonaut treats songwriting like a diagnosis of the human condition – seeing the symptoms of unraveling society, political failure and the wearing away of compassion with a combination of anger, tenderness and unsettling clarity. The tension is clear: deceptively upbeat melodies sometimes hide songs crying, protesting or both, against the absurdity of and pain he sees local and global.
Moments like opening tracks ‘Stick to the Script’ immediately sell the grungy, unrefined ethos of the album. Guitars are fuzzed, synths warble and drums punch cleanly through a gloriously imperfect, human wall of sound. Standouts are deeps that cut with psychological snapshots of a world losing grip on decency, with innocence, manipulation, conflict, with raw & honest truthfulness without cliché. But the aptly titled ‘Hey Doc!’ was as usual. Straddling his dual perspective, it perfectly encapsulates a desperate cry under infectious hooks.
Dark Energy is powered by the analogue soul, crucially. No digital sheen, no autotune, no click track rigidity. You hear the room, you hear the moment, you hear the fingerprints on the process. As much as sonic, this is philosophical – a rejection of algorithmic gloss, a defiant affirmation of human imperfection. Coolonaut isn’t easy comfort — it’s clear eyed witnessing, in response to personal and political turmoil with grit, with surprising grace, with unapologetically raw creativity. In a world overproduced, Dark Energy is a vital, jarring and finally human reminder of music’s ability to reflect the storm.
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