The Brights - Oyster Rock! (2023) Hi-Res

The Brights, hailing from Sydney’s Gadigal territory, make listening to their first full album LP a breeze. Oyster Rock! is a diverse and highly accessible affair, with sunny melodies and poignant undertones. The fusion of beachy vibes, alt-country nuances and folk touches coalesce within the familiar confines of jangly indie rock.

Rather than striving for uniqueness, The Brights focus on crafting the best songs imaginable. As a result, most of the record sounds pleasingly familiar with most of the songs inviting comparisions to well-loved bands. Opener Waiting reminds me of Bonny Doon, for example, while Quiet As A Cloud wanders in Real Estate territory, and Everyone In Town definitely has some healthy Pavement fingerprints over it. Other songs draw comparisons to the likes of Nic Hessler, Woods and Twerps. To be clear, this namedropping takes nothing away from the high level of songwriting skills of The Brights.

What sets The Brights apart is that they’ve mastered all these different subgenres of indie pop and indie rock. It’s as though they handpicked influences from different shelves, each direction perfectly complementing the essence of individual tracks. Meticulously crafted yet retaining a sense of spontaneity, each of these songs is worth spending time with.