Overview
Staring out to sea, Matthew “Murph” Murphy seemed to see himself for the first time. He’d found himself down on the beach after “a fucking terrible morning” on holiday with his family earlier this summer, truly taking in the enormity of his surroundings: nature’s unceasing ebb and flow, its timelessness and tranquility.
He had, right there, what he now calls a “mushroom-esque spiritual experience”. “It was a moment of complete awe, but also a shock,” he recalls. “There was this revelation that I had been living a life caught up in my own head, or in some kind of racing helmet or with blinkers on. It was really a potent experience. I felt like I saw everything new for the first time, and was aware that I had been so selfish to not take in how crazy the world and life is. I’d been caught up in my own BS for way too long.” He found himself asking difficult questions. “Why are my head and body disconnected all the time? Why am I incapable at times of seeing any form of beauty in the world or in others? Why do I expect the world to conform to my will? Why do I never stop and smell the flowers?”
The album that follows – Oh! The Ocean, The Wombats’ sixth, and their most sonically adventurous and superbly melodic yet – sets about trying to answer them. Its sophisticated, ahead-of-the-curve grooves (the richness of Death Cab for Cutie combined with the adventuring mindset of St Vincent and Tame Impala) still tremble with the sort of confessional emotional honesty that has made the Liverpool band’s music as cathartic and relatable to their growing young fanbase as it is catchy and playful. From behind the band’s deceptively cuddly façade, Murph has sung openly about his anxiety, depression, marital issues and addictions (he’s now “sober as hell”); here, he lays bare his social discomfort, internal strife, compulsive behaviours and the dilemmas and tribulations of life in his adopted Los Angeles. But, like this year’s second album from Murph’s side-project Love Fame Tragedy, Life Is a Killer, there’s also a sense of progress towards confronting, accepting and coping with his issues.
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