Role Model

About

After 19 years of dogged performing and recording, Melbourne pop-punk outfit Bodyjar officially disbanded in 2009. For a couple years, anyway. They started touring again in 2012, and early into the following year, a particularly successful Australian tour alongside the Descendents left the newly revitalized quartet with enough money to consider making their first new record in eight years. At the time, guitarist Tom Read wryly opined that if the songs they wrote for <i>Role Model</i> weren’t any good, they’d just spend the money on beer. In practice, the making of <i>Role Model</i> was more all-in than Read’s preamble would suggest. Shihad drummer and producer Tom Larkin was tapped to record, with the band insisting that their return to energetic sing-alongs be sheened with a big garage spirit à la Shihad’s <i>The General Electric</i>. First single “Fairytales” indicated they’d succeeded in the studio—and could recapture the working-class poetry that enlivened their commercial peak. Then came the heavy-hitting guests: That’s Lagwagon lead singer Joey Cape singing on highlight “Hope Was Leaving” (fittingly, Stephen Egerton of the Descendents contributed the guitar solo). The Amity Affliction bassist/vocalist Ahren Stringer also chimes in over the title track’s welcome-back mat to Bodyjar’s classic bash of pleasing pace and agreeable anarchy. It’s a vibe that defines <i>Role Model</i>, hitting its stride hardest by “Together Alone”—arguably one of the most unmistakable songs Bodyjar has ever written.

via Apple Music