Image by Kyle Dobie //

In Nice Biscuit we trust.

With a US label, and having spent so much time touring the UK/EU over the past couple of years, you could be forgiven for thinking that Brisbane/Meanjin quintet Nice Biscuit aren’t Australian. After listening to their latest LP, SOS you could be forgiven for thinking they’re from this planet..

The record, which drops today, feels like a kind of guided meditation, with the breathy vocals of front-women Billie Star and Grace Cuell taking over the controls as we dip and weave on the Nice Biscuit spaceship. Of course, the music and singing interweave throughout the album’s nine tracks, but there’s an elevation of the vocals that makes each lyric hit home a little harder. It’s a result of an unusual process in the studio, they explain.

“The boys laid down the foundations of the songs on the weekend prior and then Billie and Grace would head out to add vocals and write lyrics. Often we would not have the lyrics or melodies finished before going out there, which allowed more focus and energy to be poured into the instrumentation and vocals. It fostered greater creativity and space by doing it separately and felt like a fun back and forth between the two groups, being excited to share what we have created. Then in the weeks after we got together and added more synth and percussion parts.”

Swaying between moments of dreamy psych and punchy, up-tempo jams, SOS will equally satisfy your immersive-pop and shoegazey tendencies. The album’s title track slots more into the former category, beginning as a moody mantra before building to an all-consuming outro. “Often, it seems that it’s easier to tell your best friend that they need to slow down and follow their inner voice, rather than telling yourself that exact thing,” the band says of the song.

To celebrate the release of SOS (which you can buy/stream here), Nice Biscuit will be hitting the road in Aus over November. Check out the dates below and grab yourself a ticket or two here.