Artist Of The Day: The Oyster Murders

Australian dream pop quartet The Oyster Murders sums itself up nicely on "Disaster Flower Bloom," the first single from its new EP Mourning Birds. Like the title suggests, the band's music hints at tragedy but does so with songwriting that's organic and gracefully expansive: the sound is a heady balance of beautiful acoustics and buzzy vocals teetering on the brink of meltdown. Married couple and vocalists Grant and Wendy Redgen lead us into the band's nightmarish world, providing a melancholy rapport to anchor the album's emotional ups and downs. And there's a lot of downs: "Feed Ourselves to the Wolves" drowns out itself in echo chamber production and guitar fog, while "The Atlantis Quarterly" finds a brief spot of sunshine only for storm clouds to gather in the surprisingly dark chorus. What's ultimately impressive about this dream world The Oyster Murders craft, though, is that even when everything is bathed in a certain ambiguity, the songs themselves chart a clear journey towards clarity, delving into darkness to come up with concise little glimmers of songcraft--music as exploration and antidote. Mourning Birds is haunting, catchy, and vivid, and it'll stick with you even after you wake up.

You can stream Mourning Birds below and investigate The Oyster Murders over on Facebook.