In Teddy Roosevelt’s oft-quoted “man in the arena” speech, he famously advised his audience that “it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.” Had he written that address in the midst of a Wake in Fright-style outback bender, it might have come out a little like Amyl and the Sniffers’ cathartically vulgar “Jerkin’”: “You are just a critic/And you want to hit it … Keep jerkin’ on your squirter/You will never get with me.” “It is not the critic who counts,” indeed. “Jerkin’” kicks off Cartoon Darkness, the Australian punk band’s third album, and it sets an aggrieved, chip-on-shoulder tone that infiltrates even its sunniest songs. The defensiveness is understandable, if a bit exhausting.
The Sniffers, led by their firecracker frontwoman Amy Taylor, have enjoyed a steady rise over their near-decade of existence. The band started in 2016 when its members were housemates in Melbourne, and a pair of rough, rowdy EPs quickly established them as adept pub-rock revivalists. By the time they released their bracing, Wipers-meets-AC/DC self-titled LP in 2019, the Sniffers were already opening for Foo Fighters on tour and getting talked up by famous fans like Jarvis Cocker. Suddenly, the Australian band was taking heat on two fronts—from scene trolls who accused Amyl and the Sniffers of selling out, and from everyday bogans who looked askance at their sudden celebrity. They were the tall poppy, and they needed cutting down.
At least, that’s the universe Taylor constructs on Cartoon Darkness. Beyond “Jerkin’,” there’s “U Should Not Be Doing That,” a smoldering thesis statement for the album, anchored by a thick bass groove and ringed in smoky saxophone: “I was in LA/Shaking my shit,” Taylor sings. “While you were down in Melbourne saying, ‘Fuck that bitch.’” On the Rose Tattoo-ish “Pigs,” an unnamed interlocutor is a “sucker”—Taylor, naturally, is a “rocker,” who’s “living the wet dream.” Telling your haters to fuck off is a reliable rock’n’roll theme, but Cartoon Darkness sometimes seems paranoid, hung up on adversaries who, it seems, haven’t exactly stood in the way of the band’s success. It’s the “nobody believed in us” cliché of championship sports teams, a theme that can become tiring when repeated too often.
