Track: Walls

Bear with me: this is complicated. On ‘Walls’, Brisbane indie folk quintet Oh Ye Denver Birds have buried a fundamentally simple pop song underneath many musical layers. At its core is a finger-picked acoustic guitar, a stomped bass drum, and Dominic Stephens’ voice, which sings of self-discovery and self-acceptance. This ain’t no introspective navel-gazing, though: the lyrics are pointed outward, toward the listener. The central, recurring motif suggests that “We all need time to get away from everything you love”, though the song’s title refers to the middle-eight (“All your fears have been realised/The wave will see the walls come down/Fall down”).

Packed atop these weighty concepts are lashings of trombone, violin, clattering percussion, multi-part harmonies, xylophone and a barely-there undercurrent of pre-programmed, gurgling electronica. Stephens’ sentences are regularly punctuated by Katherine Gough; most of the time, he doesn’t so much as sing but wail. His delivery is the most immediately compelling facet of Denver Birds’ dense creation: he tends to hold onto syllables a few moments longer than expected, which lends itself to repeat listens – if only in an attempt to better understand his unconventional vocal style. (I told you this was complicated.) In the end, both singers conclude with a sentiment that fits the track’s youthful wanderlust: “Soon, far away I’ll run”.