Album Review: The Ocean Party - The Oddfellows' Hall

Throughout the last eight years, the arrival of a new album from The Ocean Party has become not only a cause for celebration, but also a source of comfort. The Wagga Wagga band’s music has always sounded familiar, taking inspiration from well-known guitar bands like The Feelies and Real Estate. However, its six songwriters have also become familiar to listeners in a personal sense; they’ve shared their art for so long that their records have become exactly that – documents of the band members’ lives, functioning like audio-postcards from the young musicians as they’ve grown and matured.

The songs on The Oddfellows’ Hall are united by introspection (“I know none of this makes me different,” Lachlan Denton sings on What It’s Worth, questioning the significance of his own experiences) and continue to explore the band’s fears and insecurities regarding adulthood with a vulnerability that remains refreshing. As usual, songwriting duties are shared across the record, which features two songs from each of them. Lachlan Denton’s singing on What It’s Worth best describes the way the band’s democratic songwriting approach sacrifices cohesion for authenticity: “I know that I’m not being coherent, but that’s the price you pay to live on this earth.”

Tragically, drummer Zach Denton passed away shortly before the album’s original release date. His songs Rain On Tin and Home are some of his most personal, nestled alongside songs from the other band members about expectant parenthood (White Cockatoo) and failed relationships (Better).