Did Gang Of Youths Release The Album Of The Decade With 'Go Farther In Lightness'?

It took me 37 seconds to realise how great Gang Of Youths’ Go Farther In Lightness was. No really, I even said to my husband as he walked in the room that it would be the album of the year. This album was a game-changer for me.

Before Go Farther In Lightness, I hadn’t really paid Gang Of Youths a whole lot of attention (why did I waste so much time?!), but as soon as I heard the opening lines of Fear & Trembling and Dave Le’aupepe’s vocals I knew they were for me. 

At the time, I wrote in a review that “Go Farther In Lightness will prove frontman Dave Le’aupepe as one of Australia’s foremost songwriters” and it's a sentiment that I stand by. It’s also become very apparent given the attention the group have received since the album’s August 2017 release. Foo Fighters and Mumford & Sons don’t pick you as stadium tour supports without good reason, you know? Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz also called them the “best fucking band in the world right now”.

This an album of earnest, honest and vivid lyricism from Le’aupepe, paired with striking and varied arrangements from guitarist Joji Malani, keyboardist Jung Kim, bass player Max Dunn and drummer Donnie Borzestowski that draw on everything from Bruce Springsteen to classical music. 

"This album was a game-changer for me."

At the album's heart though, it’s Le’aupepe’s candour that draws listeners in and holds them tight. 

“After [2015’s] The Positions, I was really broken and fucked up and not in a good way. Better than I was during the actual recording process and during that part of my life, but I wasn’t doing well, I don’t think,” he shared when we spoke for The Music’s cover story around the album’s release.

”The whole point of Go Farther In Lightness was to make, and is to make, the arc of my life, more or less, about the process of repairing, the process of being more human, more empathic, more authentic to myself, more aware of the people around me, more aware of the world. To open myself back up to love and back up to life and try to negate the things in me that are life negating.”

People clearly related - the album debuted at #1 on the ARIA Albums Chart and scored saw them nominated for eight ARIA Awards. They took home four, including the coveted Album Of The Year (cue stoked me because I finally called one!). Last year they broke venue records with their epic Say Yes To Life tour, which saw 21 shows, the launch of their own festival and thousands of people in attendance. 

I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this album in the past couple of years - particularly about how much I love it - but I still feel like I can’t accurately portray my feelings for it or just what it's meant to me. I think what I’ve taken away from this album the most though is comfort, and at the end of the day, that’s just a really nice feeling to have.