Hot on the heels of announcing their forthcoming fifth studio album Jesus At The Gay Bar, Australia’s Cub Sport share glistening new offering “Songs About It”.
For their entire career, Cub Sport have been searching for some kind of absolution. To listen to the Brisbane band’s music is to see a process of unburdening and unlearning in slow motion: their four albums to date plot a progression away from shame and towards joy, celebration and pure euphoria.
“Songs About It”, the irrepressible new single from Cub Sport’s forthcoming fifth album Jesus At The Gay Bar out Good Friday, April 7th, cuts to the heart of the latest incarnation of the beloved Brisbane four-piece. A piece of euphoric, starry-eyed piano house, “Songs About It” is about getting stuck in a moment of hedonistic, split-second joy and memorialising it in the form of pure pop.
In a sense, it speaks to the sparkling highs of the Cub Sport catalogue, which has always sought to capture love and beauty in song form. Few Cub Sport songs, though, have manifested like this: with a winking, 90s-referencing piano riff and roiling, infectious sub-bass, “Songs About It” charts new territory for the band, the track’s classic-sounding rhythm managing to say just as much as its lyrics. The single follows on from previous release “Keep Me Safe” which saw recent spot plays on BBC Radio 1’s Future Artists with Jack Saunders.
On their resplendent, upcoming fifth album Jesus At The Gay Bar - the title of which was inspired by writer Jay Hulme's poem of the same name - Cub Sport finally reach that point of ecstatic lightness, or at least somewhere close to it. Using the language of bright, crystalline dance music - with nods to house, 2-step and UK garage, while retaining the lush fragility of Cub Sport music past - as shorthand for a kind of hard-won spiritual freedom, Jesus At The Gay Bar finds Tim Nelson, Sam Netterfield, Zoe Davis and Dan Puusaari largely shedding hang-ups and celebrating love and life in all its manifestations.
Where Cub Sport’s 2020 album Like Nirvana was a bloodletting of sorts – dealing with the long, complex legacy that religious trauma can leave on a life – Jesus At The Gay Bar is about moving forward unencumbered. It’s an ode to celebrating one’s past, not just outrunning it, and looking boldly into the future, without the fear of past demons resurfacing. “There’s a lot from my life before I came out that has always been shrouded in shame, fear and secrecy. But it doesn’t have to be a secret anymore, and I feel like I can really shine a light on the magic of it and recognise and celebrate it for what it was and is,” says Nelson. “A lot of this album is validating my younger self – like if I could have heard some of these songs back then, I might have found some peace within myself sooner, maybe even celebration.”
Even if Jesus At The Gay Bar can’t slip back through time, it’s sure to find a home in the record collections of anyone looking to embrace the bright, bold potential of queer experience. This album is Cub Sport in all-bangers, few-ballads mode: the production here nods to house, 2-step and UK garage, while retaining the lush fragility of Cub Sport music past. These are dance songs whose beats capture the feeling of butterflies in your stomach and stars in your eyes. The crackling, kinetic “Songs About It” is a piano-house rave-up that’s thick with the heat of a summer dancefloor, while “Always Got The Love” stretches a feeling of pure devotion into a gripping, muscular groove. These songs might remind you of the past, or they might provide diamond-hard assurance that the future holds something honest and thrilling. Written during the pandemic, the carefree sound of Jesus At The Gay Bar was inspired by time spent in private, communing with nature and relaxing with friends and family. “I was so familiar with getting my joy and happiness from playing shows,” Nelson says. “I had to learn to find joy elsewhere. And that kind of lead to me wanting to make music that gave me that energy, and that at its core, felt uplifting.”
On Jesus At The Gay Bar, that sense of uplift is used to reify and exalt stories from Nelson and Netterfield’s past – namely, their love story. Across this record, the early days of their relationship, at the time shrouded in secrecy and fear, are memorialised for what they are: moments of beauty and youthful ecstasy. Many of these songs, “Keep Me Safe” and “Replay” among them, recognize those moments as necessary scenes of transformation and growth. Set to booming dance-pop, they play like fairy tales, stories to be heard over and over. It’s not the end of the story Cub Sport have been telling over their decade-plus as a band, but it does speak to something their music has always tried to convey – about music and artmaking as a powerful and spiritually emboldening process.
“I think that’s the beauty of writing honestly about my own life – it all fits together and reveals a little bit more of this greater story that’s still playing out, from an ever-evolving perspective but with the same heart,” Nelson says. “We have the self-appointed freedom to evolve and change and I think that’s why, five albums in, it still feels exciting.”
Marking three years since their last tour of the UK–which included a sold-out show at London’s iconic Scala–fans might say it’s long overdue that Cub Sport make a return to our stages… Now the wait is finally over, this April/May will see the band kick off their new UK tour in Glasgow before heading to Manchester, Bristol and finishing off at London’s pristine Lafayette. Full list of shows below.
Since their emergence in the early-2010s, Meanjin-based Cub Sport have captivated an avid following with their vulnerable, yet self-confident, output of progressive indie-pop. Comprising Tim Nelson, Sam Netterfield, Zoe Davis and Dan Puusaari, the self-managed and self-released act are renowned for their electrifying live performances, having graced stages at Laneway, Splendour In The Grass, Falls Festival 2020’s AFL Grand Final, and Summer Camp. A national favourite, the band have landed in triple j’s Hottest 100 five times, and have seen ARIA-Platinum and Gold certification for singles “Come On Mess Me Up”, “Chasin” and “Sometimes”. Boasting over 250 million streams - and including 2020’s ARIA #2 album, Like Nirvana - Cub Sport’s self-produced discography has garnered praise from The Guardian, BBC Radio 1, Rolling Stone, Billboard, i-D, VICE, Gay Times, Attitude, The FADER and many more. Recent singles, “Replay” and “Always Got The Love”, received adoration on release via swift additions to triple j and community radio, plus press support from RUSSH, NME and more - including a PAPER Magazine premiere and takeover of Grindr’s New Music Frigay for the release of “Replay”.
Tim Nelson and Sam Netterfield were recently seen owning the red carpet after Nelson’s nomination for his first GRAMMY award - for his contribution to Baynk's album Adolescence (Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical). Tim engineered, co-wrote and featured on the track “Mine (feat. Cub Sport)”.
Jesus At The Gay Bar is out on Good Friday, April 7
Catch them live in the UK:
29th April – Poetry Club, Glasgow
30th April – Deaf Institute, Manchester
1st May – Louisiana, Bristol
4th May – Lafayette, London
Search and buy tour tickets below right now through our trusted partner Ticketmaster.
