Melbourne’s The Murlocs have announced their brand new studio album, Calm Ya Farm, due out May 19 on ATO Records. Following their 2022 garage-psych opus Rapscallion, the band initially set out with a vision of creating a quintessential country-rock record: inspired by iconic albums like The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo as well as the hazier edges of the mid-’70s British pub-rock scene. Spiked with The Murlocs’ signature breed of sharply crafted garage-punk—and with lead vocalist, guitarist & harmonica triple threat Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s surrealist musings on the ever-turbulent world around him—the new collection ultimately twists country-rock convention into a free-flowing album fully in touch with the frenetic energy of modern life.
Recorded in their home studios and mixed by repeat collaborator John Lee, Calm Ya Farm brings that sun-drenched sound to tracks like lead single “Initiative”: a sweetly raucous anthem for growing up without completely shaking off your reckless side. Released today alongside an official video, Kenny-Smith explains, “It’s about recognizing the need to start taking responsibility for your life instead of always living in the now and killing all your brain cells along the way. Not everyone wants the big family and the big house with the white picket fence. Everything happens for a reason and sometimes you need to take things more seriously and make a few power moves in life to find out what comes next in the crystal ball.”
Calm Ya Farm tracklisting:
1. Initiative
2. Common Sense Civilian
3. Russian Roulette
4. Superstitious Insights
5. Centennial Perspective
6. Queen Pinky
7. Undone And Unashamed
8. Captain Cotton Mouth
9. Catfish
10. Smithereens
11. Forbidden Toad
12. Aletophyte
