RVG – the Melbourne post-punk band of lyricist/frontwoman Romy Vager, guitarist Rueben Bloxham, drummer Marc Nolte, and bassist Isabele Wallace – shares the new single/video, “Midnight Sun,” from their new album, Brain Worms, out June 2nd on Fire Records. A hurtling rock song, “Midnight Sun” deals with matters of disbelief, and what it feels like to live in a culture that often prefers to argue about semantics rather than save the world from burning. Aptly furious and defiant, Vager cuts through the chaos singing “My city is in ashes / but I’m still burning bright / Hangin’ here like a lantern / In case you change your mind.” The video, directed by Oscar O’Shea, shows Vager singing the track during a house party, as its attendees continue to obliviously converse.

Vager elaborates on the track: “I wrote this around the time of the Australian bushfires in 2019 when it felt like everything precious about this country was being destroyed by climate change. There were all these talking heads trying to play down how much of a disaster it was, instead focusing on how much they hate immigrants or queer people. I thought – the world is literally on fucking fire and this is what you choose to use your platform on? The song is contrasting these two things, and how sick we are ideologically that we can’t identify what real problems are.

All throughout Brain Worms, it’s apparent that RVG is in very fine form. Named for the recognizable experience of each day bearing witness to a world of private obsessions being aired out in the infinite, Brain Worms may not be wholly new territory for the Melbourne post-punk band, but this time around, there’s a newfound radical acceptance glistening overtop everything. Vager’s voice is unfiltered and commanding as ever when delivering her clever, not-quite-ironic lyrics. Here, though, those lyrics feel so much less resigned to yearning, and so much more defiant and joyous.

Bloxham, Nolte, and Wallace are flawlessly adept in bringing Vager’s songwriting to life. Recorded in London at Snap Studios with James Trevascus (Billy Nomates, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, The Goon Sax), all ten tracks surge with lush sounds and clear intentions  — and the magic of an acoustic guitar once owned by Kate Bush, given to her by Tears for Fears.

Between the four bandmates this is the most confident they’ve ever felt in RVG. They’ve moved past their influences, pushed themselves, and tried new things. And they have made a record they can, by all accounts, call their best.

Photo Courtesy: Nick McKinlay