The Crayon Fields launched their second album, All The Pleasures Of The World, to a sell-out crowd at the lovely Bella Union room. The wooden floors and high-school dancehall feel of the room suited the band to a tee, giving space and even a little glamour to the kick-off of a truly wondrous album, three years after the band’s previous offering.
While the delightful Animal Bells was recorded mostly in Geoff O’Connor’s bedroom, the new album is a little older, a little wiser, with a bit more cash thrown behind it and a beautiful production as evidence. On stage, the band looks comfortable and the sound is tight, with many of the songs sped-up from the record and aimed straight at the hips.
O’Connor’s wispy honey vocals are clearer, stronger, and the harmonies melt into one another with deceptive ease. All the old influences remain audible, the late 60’s Beach Boys and Zombies sunny psychedelic pop positively glow in O’Connor’s exquisite songwriting, but there is a wave of others peeking in and a new-found confidence backing these tracks. The hand-claps, xylophones, bells and whistles which, together with the hopelessly naïve lyrics, invited Belle and Sebastian comparisons and an affectionate level of mockery to any discussion of the band, have since been downplayed and replaced by lush guitar work and synth. The tropicala sounds of O’Connor’s solo project Sly Hats can be heard amongst some playful rhythms, held gracefully by Neil Erenstrom’s crisp percussion and driven by Brett Hudson’s often succulent bass lines, shown off in the divine Graceless.
Lyrically, too, the band has developed – and it seems along the way, someone fell in love; each song on All The Pleasures Of The World casts smitten, adoring eyes at a new muse. Mirrorball and Voice of Paradise were both upbeat, shimmering love songs, as was the fantastic title-track. The band stuck to mostly new material, side-stepping only for old favourites Living So Well and Impossible Things.
Support came from locals The Twerps who play lo-fi dreamy pop with nods to Flying Nuns and a Crystal Stilts-like shimmer. Their beautiful guitars led by Martin Frawley craft a jangly beach-haze, which will (finally!) be launched onto 7’’ in November.
The Twerps were followed by local stalwarts Panel of Judges, who after twelve years together, seem to have hit a new stride with their magnificent album Bad Vibrations and the recent recruitment of Twerps front-man Martin Frawley onto guitar, adding a little depth to Panel of Judges minimalist approach, as dual songwriters Dion Nania and Alison Bolger (Beaches) swap guitars and vocal duties on songs that are unruffled and entrancing.
To keep the kick-off party going, the Swedish-cum-Melbourne indie popster Jens Lekman took up place behind the decks and DJ’d a gallant set with a fair amount of disco and cheese to have the floorboards getting a workout, as well as an equal amount of hipster’s walking out. But the staunch pop sensibilities of the Crayon Fields are above such snobbery, demonstrated by their cover of Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’ in the encore, O’ Connor’s declared love for ABBA, and the fact that they were out there on the dance floor with the rest of us, closing the feel-good party in fine style.
to listen to their music now on 
