Methyl Ethel is one of the most exciting artists in Australia right now. Led by multi-instrumentalist and producer Jake Webb, the Perth-based artist gathers numerous artists for his live shows. Webb has built up an impressive reputation: he has gained accolades for his solo work; the third Methyl Ethel album, Triage, released in 2019, was a mostly solitary affair. The band has supported Pond on tour, released Record Store Day exclusives, and steadily climbed the ARIA Charts with each release.
While I have followed Webb’s career with keen interest over the years, Methyl Ethel indeed won me over with the Hurts to Laugh EP. Made up of Triage offcuts, the EP still sounds fresh, rounded, and like anything but a collection of B-sides. However, when you remember that some of the coolest songs ever written are B-sides – “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” by ABBA, to name the most egregious example of a great song left off the album – maybe we should pay B-sides more respect.
Are You Haunted?, the fourth album from Methyl Ethel and first on Future Classic Records, opens with the majestic number, “Ghosting.” Not only does “Ghosting” set the stage for the fun to come, but it also fulfills Webb’s vision for the album: “I see this album as the dreams coming from a person sitting at a piano,” he shared in a press release. The song gradually builds, highlighting his warbling vocal above the trembling piano before a superb beat hits. Webb has a dreamy, powerful voice and an exceptional falsetto that holds all his magnificent ideas together.
Next up is “Proof,” written in 2020 amid the US election and the emergence of COVID-19. It is also the first Methyl Ethel track to feature a guest vocalist, and it’s none other than Western Australia’s own Stella Donnelly. Initially a poppy dance song ready for radio, “Proof” ducks and weaves into a wistful bridge and back to the groove. With Donnelly pleading, “what can you see, what can you see now” and Webb’s call-and-response, “if you want to, want to,” the track asks us: what is real and what is misinformation? It helps that, as Webb says and I believe, “Stella is one of the most truth-telling artists” he’s ever heard.
“One and Beat” has its own surprise. Opening as a melancholy ballad that recalls Radiohead’s 2001 classic, “Pyramid Song,” Webb brings in double-tracked vocals, an addictive beat, and a time change led by electronic whirs into an unanticipated energetic finale. On the jangly “Matters,” he commands bodies to take the dancefloor. “Neon Cheap” wouldn’t have been out of place on the Hurts to Laugh EP; with its mesmerizing drumbeat and unusual synth melody, Webb takes conventional pop song structures and tropes and turns them upside down. To my delight, Methyl Ethel has become a triple j darling, meaning that these songs will be heard by a broad Australian audience on radio and online and beyond.
“Castigat Ridendo Mores,” named after the Latin phrase for “one corrects customs by laughing at them” or “he corrects customs by ridicule,” has been a part of the Methyl Ethel canon since 2020, when Webb made his live debut of the track for Digital FORT. This two-day event brought together over 100 artists to help raise money for people hit hardest by COVID-19. Throughout “Castigat Ridendo Mores,” there are ominous moments wedged between pure beauty. The track conjures metaphorical tremors – “what is this holy lesson sent without a God?” and real-life observations – “speeches are all absurd when nothing is said.” You can’t beat songs with Webb and a piano.
Methyl Ethel left 4AD to Future Classic, an independent Australian record label celebrating dance music. It’s a move that suits Jake Webb very well indeed: he continues with his fusion of dramatic experimentation and electro-pop. There’s always something hiding on Are You Haunted? making the album a different listening experience every time. At times bringing out the best of Muse – the piano epics – Talking Heads (“Neon Cheap”), and Echo and the Bunnymen, Methyl Ethel is in contention for the discussion on today’s greats.