The Melbourne crew sneaks in with a whisper and leaves with a roar on their most honest record yet.
There is a moment about forty seconds into Danger Den’s new single ‘Given’ where the band decides to stop teasing.
They lure you in with a cool, swaying bossa nova intro, almost whispering, “Hey, relax,” and then they kick the door down.
Guitars pile through the frame, the rhythm section starts swinging, and suddenly you’re not relaxing anymore; you’re yelling along to a song about crawling out of the wreckage of your own life.
That moment, that willingness to trick you just so they can save you, is what makes It’ll Be Alright such a thrilling ride.
The Melbourne five-piece, a lineup stacked with three guitarists and enough vocal talent to start a choir, has been quietly building something special in the local scene.
Jeremy Uyloan and his crew aren’t recycling pop-punk sounds to trigger cheap nostalgia; they’re treating the genre like a living document that’s being written, and re-written, by the Melbourne crew.
You can hear the ghosts of Green Day’s swagger and The Living End’s rockabilly swing, but Danger Den writes like kids who grew up on the radio, not just the punk clubs.
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They aren’t afraid of a massive hook, but they also aren’t afraid to let things breathe.
It’ll Be Alright plays out like a songbook because it refuses to stick to one colour.
‘Given’ is the obvious knockout, a track about shaking off narcissists and bad habits that builds to a guitar solo so melodic it feels like a victory speech.
But the EP’s heart beats in the spaces between the loud parts. ‘New Ways’ strips things back with shimmering acoustics, proving they can break you without the distortion pedals.
And yes, there’s a harmonica buried in here somewhere. It shouldn’t work. It absolutely does.
This is an EP for anyone who has ever needed a three-minute burst of reassurance that things will, eventually, click back into place.
Danger Den understands that life is usually a mess, but a loud guitar and a shared chorus can make the mess feel manageable.
For fans of Jimmy Eat World who miss the emotional gut-punch, or Aussies who wish Foo Fighters wrote songs about Melbourne commutes, It’ll Be Alright is a reminder that the best rock music still comes from five people in a room who refuse to play it safe.
