Signing to an indie label of note isn’t the be-all and end-all (far from it sometimes), but it can be confirmation for a band that their music, this thing they’re devoted to, is being recognised and heard, and that they’re on a promising trajectory.
Announced today via The Music Network, Melbourne five-piece Delivery, whose sound traverses new wave, garage and punk rock, and almost everything in between, have joined the Heavenly Recordings roster. The band should feel confident about their decision, with Confidence Man, Hatchie, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and Midlife being previous Australian acts to have found a suitable home at the label.
For Delivery, today’s news is also confirmation of another thing: that sometimes the right recipe of bandmates, work ethic, and shared vision and style is out there waiting.
Typical of the Melbourne music scene, the band features members recruited from some of the city’s finest DIY bands, including Kosmetika, Blonde Revolver, and The Vacant Smiles.
While all those projects had their merits, Delivery, led by James Lynch and Rebecca Allan, have just found that extra ounce of connection with listeners beyond Melbourne.
After forming in 2020, Delivery got to work quickly, delivering (apologies) an impressive EP, Yes We Do, and a debut album, Forever Giving Handshakes, in back to back years. (The latter earned a place in our list of the Best Australian Albums of 2022.)
“Delivery play with a thrilling immediacy, always on the front foot, forever in attack mode, exuding an intense urgency. You know the end of the record has to come eventually – like the calming stop of a rollercoaster drop – but you hope that it doesn’t,” Tone Deaf wrote of Forever Giving Handshakes.
“Underneath the rapid-fire vocal delivery, intricate guitar interplay is rife; it’s always a case of more is more. Recorded over a matter of days in their Brunswick rehearsal space, the album also has a live feeling to it.”
Prominent festival spots soon opened up for the band at Golden Plains, BIGSOUND, SXSW Sydney, Tent Pole and Meadow Festival, and they also landed support slots for Pond, Tropical F**k Storm, Wednesday, and others.
To celebrate their signing to Heavenly Recordings, Delivery have shared their first single for the label, “Digging the Hole”, which doubles as the first taste of the band’s forthcoming second album.
“‘Digging the Hole’ was the first track thrown in the mix for our upcoming album and it definitely set the tone of things to come,” the band say of the song, which recalls the exuberant, no-nonsense rock of Parquet Courts and The Hives.
“It was written in a rush, combining a bunch of unused ideas, with vocals and guitar leads completely ad-libbed on the spot as it was demoed. The final song ended up with more twists and turns than a Sherlock episode, but at the same time seemed to make perfect sense to me.”
As for the lyrics, “Digging the Hole” they note that “there are some people who take on the grunt work and there are some people who don’t mind shovel;ing the dirt back in and undoing all the effort. ‘Digging the Hole’ is a reminder to be the person who keeps digging that hole, even when someone is filling it right back in again.”
Before their second album arrives, Delivery have lots of tour dates lined up, including single launch shows in Melbourne and Sydney in August and September. Ticket information can be found here.
Delivery’s “Digging the Hole” is out now via Heavenly Records / PIAS.
