After playing their songs literally thousands of times I can confidently say Ball Park Music is a band I’ll never get sick of. The Brisbane outfit’s deep discography spanning over 14 years means their music has grown up with them, and their different eras are signposted remarkably well with clear evolution through each of their eight releases.
Despite all the stylistic changes though, Ball Park’s music can be generally described as happy. Their most popular songs, “It’s Nice To Be Alive” and “Exactly How You Are”, are perfect examples of this attitude backed by bright melodies—they literally have an album called Good Mood. But this generalisation sadly ignores what I consider to be their most impressive body of work, and an unexpected outlier in their stacked library.
Sandwiched between the quirky hit-laced Puddinghead (2014) and the aforementioned indie pop aesthetics of Good Mood (2018) is their fourth album, Every Night the Same Dream, released in 2016. The cover artwork alone is a complete departure for the Park—their debut gave us a naked hiker; Museum a person buried underneath dozens of suitcases; Puddinghead a weird collage of an owl-headed man holding a butterfly… this time around, a minimalistic painting of two rounded rectangles overlapping, without so much as an album title or band name. It’s a beautiful canvas and a signal that the band are venturing into unfamiliar territory; even the title is more elaborate and mysterious than the three records that precede it.
Indeed, Every Night is a psych rock departure for the group, with fuzzy guitars, unfamiliar tones, unconventional song structures, and heavy vocal processing. “Pariah”, a seven-minute rock opera which begins as a delicate piano ballad before gradually erupting into a heavily layered instrumental jam of synthesisers, jagged guitars and a constantly rising tempo, is the most interesting song Ball Park have ever produced. In a similar vein, “Don’t Look at Me Like That” is made up of three distinct parts: a wilting monologue backed only by quiet strumming; then a joyful reprieve with the full band giving it their all as Cromack delivers a frenzied verse with backing vocals; followed by a minute-long lo-fi instrumental which fades the song out.
Cromack’s writing truly stands out, as the frontman delivers some of the most introspective lyrics in his band’s library. The music consistently matches the emotions of the lyrics extremely well. “Blushing” is a particularly crushing example—one of the band’s saddest songs—beginning with a deep breath, Cromack’s vocals have never been so reserved and anxious, with words about self-doubt and a desire to feel isolated: “If I could forgo karma, it’d be alright to push everything aside,” the chorus reads. Fittingly, the music is restrained, downtempo, and takes a back seat for most of the song, only erupting after Cromack has finished speaking from the heart.
“Suit Yourself”, the closing track, beats to the same drum, becoming one of the Park’s only songs about heartbreak, with a truly melancholic sound to match. “Hindsight shines like a bright light, not sincere or lifelike, with its queasy change,” Cromack delivers in a broken tone, not even signing in the verses, rather just speaking until the chorus comes around with bassist Jen Boyce on backup. It’s a stark contrast to the start of the album; opening track “Feelings” sees Cromack inflicting his voice in all sorts of ways, in a yearning and swaggering tone, even moaning.
It’s not all sad: the brilliant “Peppy” brings a consistent propulsion to create a great sense of movement, before falling apart mid-way to deliver an epic two-minute breakdown that, after gathering itself, remasters the melody from the start with orchestral instruments bordering on blaring. It’s such an easy song to tap along to. And despite its title, “Nihilist Party Anthem” features one of the most danceable choruses: “Baby, don’t fight it, come on, get excited, don’t you wanna feel this way forever,” Cromack asks, promoting his gloomy worldview.
One of their most interesting and accomplished records, Every Night the Same Dream is an outlier in Ball Park’s discography. It wasn’t as commercially successful as previous albums, and didn’t have a placement in the Hottest 100 of 2016, a discrepancy which Cromack uncomfortably admitted sparked his desire to return to a more familiar bright pop sound with their next album. The saddest part for me is how the band never play songs from this album live anymore, becoming their only album to not have an appearance in their 2025 setlist (well, at their Wollongong at least). Thankfully, their seventh album Weirder & Weirder takes notes from Every Night with more quirky production choices and a similar tone-shift in the second-half, and it’s no surprise I enjoy it as much as their oddball 2016 triumph.
