Edith Lane’s debut album bursts with the voice of a generation. At its core, Eden On The Park is an unset watercolour armoured by a lifetime of trauma and insecurity.
Debut albums are often meant to be experimental, youthful, charmingly scrappy, even. Melbourne alt-rockers Edith Lane have just re-written the playbook. Their debut record, Eden On The Park, is a pastiche of raw, intense rock, but not in the copy-cat kind of way. It celebrates the many corners of the genre, doing each justice through the group’s outstanding musicianship. With lyrics penned from lead singer Victor Campano’s own experiences, the album bleeds with vulnerability and passion, piercing through every note it touches.
Eden On The Park is reminiscent of the art-rock of Radiohead‘s Kid A in the way that it prioritises enveloping sonic landscapes over virtuosity. What emerges is a rough, weather-worn representation of agony and perseverance, told with incredible vulnerability. As a debut, Edith Lane’s Eden On The Park is more than we could have dreamed for.
Bookended by two acoustic tracks, Eden On The Park slowly eases you into its vignettes so that you can experience the album in immersion. Each song lies within that spare moment of light we experience throughout our lives, with darkness surrounding from all sides. Whether you relate to the sentiments being expressed or not, this structure makes for an emotionally captivating journey.
Sonically, the album traces every imaginable wall of alt-rock on its way down. From the dense acidity of E.R, to the slow-burning ballad of King On Plinths, Eden On The Park is a masterclass in musicianship and sonic expressionism.
“Eden On The Park is an ever-evolving album. The tracks shift tonally from brighter ethereal sounds into darker and heavier sounds as the album progresses,” the band’s bio reads. “[The album] is a musical emergence in the form of a sonic adventure. The simplistic composition of the tracks evolved over time, developing complex nuances and larger arrangements. [It] is a coming of age of sorts for Edith Lane, who have been around the local Melbourne scene for the last 8 years.”
The entire album is rooted in introspection and tonality. Transitioning across lighter hues towards denser colours, the album is the intensity of rock in all its glory. But the intensity, in this case, doesn’t mean difficult to take. This is an alluring, accessible record, even when the songs are dealing with much heavier topics: mental health, abuse, trauma.
It could easily be this year’s strongest debut to date.
Grab your copy of Eden On The Park here
