For Alps’ third LP, the desired sonic connotations are spelt out bluntly on the cover. It’s a method of obfuscation if anything else, because with a few vague exceptions Alps of New South Whales doesn’t have much to do with whales, nor are the song titles (‘White Whale’, ‘Minke Whale’, etc) representative of what lies within. Previously, Chris Hearn has used place names and abbreviations derived from lyrics for his song titles, so the ones here strike immediately as arbitrary. And that’s because they are.

Arbitrary is a label some might slap onto Hearn’s previous albums, but those records - for all their tin-can fidelity and one-take looseness - are decorated with a handful of well-crafted pop songs. Alps of New South Whales really ought to be listened to as an album; the songs are more realised, illustrative and immersive, and there’s a real sense of navigating some fathomless and alien world where one must struggle to retain their cognition.

More than ever, Hearn’s reliance on cheap audio and barely audible vocalising is completely beside the point – it’s not a statement and certainly not a setback. Phantom cadences lurk within the roughly clipped sound world, and Hearn’s reverb-submerged vocals strain to be heard through the off-frequency fuzz. Here, his voice often reaches beyond his trademark offhand monotone and, particularly during ‘Narwhal’, triggers a much richer and more honest sadness than ever before.

Indeed, despite the rather twee album theme, this is sad music. Hearn’s old organ melodies – strung together by threadbare preset percussion – resonate like inverted 8-bit theme tunes, with all the pastels and primaries turned monochrome. Colour floods through this album on occasion, especially during the instrumental interludes, but this is a womb-like world, hidden away and full of its own strange traps and illusions. Perhaps the whale theme was a method of balancing an otherwise overly-candid recording for Hearn: for an artist who wields songwriting as a public confessional, its no wonder that some obfuscation is needed to obscure the heady lyrical content.

But no matter how you listen to Alps of New South Whales, one thing is certain: this album transcends Hearn’s self-imposed limitations, offering a gorgeously foreign sound world in which to ruminate.

by Shaun Prescott