It feels silly to say that Spacey Jane, one of Australia’s biggest bands of recent years, are about to enjoy a breakout moment with their third album, but that’s what the band’s members themselves believe.
In an interview with Rolling Stone AU/NZ for our March-May issue, frontman Caleb Harper reflected on the band’s new album, If That Makes Sense, which dropped last Friday (May 9th).
“Right now, we’re sort of the most prepared we’ve ever been,” Harper told us ahead of the album’s release. “This feels like an international debut for us.”
To their frustration, If That Makes Sense is the band’s first album not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their debut LP, Sunlight, was released just a few months after the pandemic was first declared, forcing Harper and his bandmates to regroup.
“We felt like the world was at our feet,” Harper recalled. “Initially, it was so frightening and we’d all just started doing music full-time. Immediately we found other jobs and things kind of fell apart around us. From a personal perspective, that was very anxiety-inducing. It definitely made me a worse person during that period of time.”
Follow-up album Here Comes Everybody debuted atop the ARIA Charts in mid-2022, but supporting the album with live shows remained an ongoing problem for the WA indie rockers.
That’s why If That Makes Sense is such an important album to Spacey Jane, and one they hope will help them finally make their mark overseas.
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The positive reviews have already been rolling in, including from Rolling Stone AU/NZ.
“Recorded in LA during a year off from touring, the album is both introspective and outward-facing. Humanity, on a grand scale. Lead single ‘All the Noise’ is a deliberate assault by guitars, layered to perfection, as Caleb Harper laments a breakup and his own shortcomings.
With guitars swinging and hearts open, If That Makes Sense is an exploration of love, loss, learning, and life. It’s time the rest of the world came along for the ride,” we wrote in a four-star review.
Spacey Jane’s interview can be found in our latest print issue, which is on newsstands now, and it will also be available to read in full online next week.
Spacey Jane’s If That Makes Sense is out now.
