Quivers
Going deep: Quivers evolve enticingly on their third album.
★★★★
Oyster Cuts
MERGE. CD/DL/LP
More Melbourne indie-rock of the highest order.
ORIGINALLY FROM Hobart, Tasmania, Sam Nicholson’s combo acquired a rhythm section in the move, with guitarist Michael Panton thereafter joined by bassist Bella Quinlan and drummer Holly Thomas. On 2021’s Golden Doubt, Quivers’ plangent, Go-Betweens-ish guitar pop blossomed amid strings and choirs, and for this third, Quinlan joins the vocal frontline, bringing irresistibly dreamy sustained notes to the languorous, 16 Lovers Lane-y Screensaver. Even while Nicholson’s group evolves so enticingly, and with such melodic abundance, what’s proved harder for him to finesse is overcoming the grief of losing his brother in a free-diving accident. He’s talked of lyric-writing as his coping mechanism; here, happily, the blissfully plodding title track sees new love encroaching (“I had a strange suspicion I might’ve dreamt you up,” coos Quinlan, on Sam’s behalf), while Apparition, with its joyful Big Star-via-Teenage Fanclub riff, finds him advising himself, “don’t patent your sorrow”. You emerge rooting for Nicholson on every count.