In the eight years since they stormed Melbourne’s rock scene, Amyl And The Sniffers have perfected their brand of cheeky rock n’ roll rebellion. With their third album Cartoon Darkness, the Aussie punks - vocalist Amy Taylor, guitarist Declan Mehrtens, bassist Gus Romer, and drummer Bryce Wilson - take their already frenetic sound to even wilder heights. Produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and recorded at Foo Fighters’ 606 Studios in Los Angeles, the album carries the weight of rock history. The same mixing desk that captured Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was the launchpad for Amyl And The Sniffer's most unpredictable record yet.

Musically, Cartoon Darkness is everything we’ve come to expect from the band, with a dash of something extra. Their familiar punk sound now mixes in some glam-rock swagger, as heard on “U Should Not Be Doing That,” while songs like “Big Dreams” show off a stormy balladry that feels like a surprising gear shift. There’s still plenty of the chaotic, fast-paced energy that fans love, but the band isn’t afraid to get weird or slow things down to make a point. Lyrically, the album dives into modern existential crises - climate change, war, AI, and the endless online noise that fuels Big Tech’s data machines. Taylor’s vocals, as always, hit like a punch to the gut, but here they’re layered with a new kind of reflection. “We’re all children forever cocooned in a shell,” she sings, touching on how our generation has become numb from overstimulation and passive consumption. We’re spoon-fed distractions that don’t even bring much joy anymore.

Taylor’s words strike a delicate balance between despair and a reckless desire for escape. “I want to celebrate,” she says, talking about ditching her phone to experience real world things like people-watching, catching the subtleties in facial expressions, noticing the small beauties we miss every day. But even as she yearns for something real, there’s a longing for fantasy, for the freedom to indulge in hedonism found between the lines of calm and chaos. The album’s title reflects the absurdity of it all, a “childlike darkness” where the future feels terrible, but we’re still laughing through it. As Taylor puts it, the future is “cartoon, the prescription is dark, but it’s novelty. It’s just a joke. It’s fun.” Cartoon Darkness captures both the dread and exhilaration of modern life. It’s the kind of album that hits hard, makes you think, and demands to be played loud.