In Light Of Recent Events

Eddy Current Suppression Ring — 2026

“Eddy Current Suppression Ring return looser, darker, and catchier without losing their nervous charm.”

I love surprise releases! Especially when Melbourne’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring drop a new one on us. The four-piece landed In Light Of Recent Events, their first album in seven years, straight onto Bandcamp with no warning beyond a casual Instagram post. The record grew out of weekly jams in Mikey Young’s studio, where the mics stay set up and the computer just runs while the band plays, and that looseness is baked into all eleven tracks.

Young’s guitar remains wiry and abrasive, buzzing with nervous energy, while Brendan Huntley expands his signature half-spoken vocal into darker emotional territory, delivering his most vulnerable performance since the band’s early days. That shift matches the material and is best displayed on the ballad “Turtle”, yes ballad, which builds in momentum as the track rolls all the way through its almost five-minute runtime and Huntley sings “There’s a feeling/That’s been playing/On my heartstrings/ It’s got me singing/It reminds me of the childhood years/ It reminds me of the treasure of tears.”

Dare I say that In Light Of Recent Events is also their biggest collection of catchy tracks. The foot tapping “My World” connects an almost sung vocal with a recurring riff that locks in your head. The bass that kicks off “Ivory Tower” will have you turning up the volume before the vocals even kick in and the track starts to spin out of control before being centered again with a familiar chord. The early records had a similar solid ring to them which combined with a nervous delivery; this one tackles modern anxiety and losing some faith in it, though the band never loses the shrugging humor that has always been something that pulled me in.

“Self Sabotage” opens the album in classic form, Danny Young’s drums locking into that steady pound while the guitar chips away at one riff until Huntley takes over and turns the title into a mantra of self-inflicted frustration. “Swimming Hole,” one of two songs the band quietly slipped onto YouTube before the album existed publicly, is the closest thing here to a breather, a loping groove that lets the bass carry the melody while everything else hangs back. “Hard To Be Moved” is perfect in my head as it’s tense and coiled, with Huntley sounding genuinely wounded rather than in your face, and the payoff hits even better because the band refuses to rush it.

I always thought The Fall are a good comparison, since Huntley shares Mark E. Smith’s gift for making repetition feel like revelation, though Huntley is far warmer company. There is also plenty of Modern Lovers in the band’s DNA, that same trick of turning plainspoken observation into something weirdly moving over a stubborn two-chord pattern. Parquet Courts fits with the jabbing vocal play and the way anxiety gets processed through groove instead of volume. And the scrappy, early spirit of New Zealand’s The Clean is also here and runs through the whole record, with the same charm and looseness that adds top value.

Seven years away and they walk back in like they left the amps on. This album is different in every good way possible as it just seems like a perfect fit today and their return to the scene sounds as natural as if they were never absent.