Album Review: Allday - 'Drinking With My Smoking Friends'

Tomas "Allday" Gaynor has emerged as a transgressive figure in the Australian hip hop scene. But the Adelaidian's latest album, Drinking With My Smoking Friends, is his most idiosyncratic. Indeed, Gaynor has pivoted to sanguine indie rock and is singing rather than rapping – as previewed by 2020's jangle-pop After All This Time. Still, fans shouldn't worry: Drinking With My Smoking Friends isn't Gaynor's equivalent of Lil Wayne's notorious rap-rock LP Rebirth.

Gaynor – again living in Melbourne following a stint in Los Angeles – is among the rappers who radically advanced Australian hip hop, a new generation enamoured of Kanye West (and noticing 360's manoeuvres). On 2014's debut Startup Cult, Gaynor abandoned classic boom-bap (aka barbecue hip hop), introducing a dynamic Drakey sing-rap mode and embracing electronic sounds – his sensibility individualistic and, presaging Speeding, emo.

In interviews, Gaynor disclosed a background in indie in addition to hip hop, even admitting to being a former band frontman. He has consistently carried over rock influences – and not just in his distinctive personal image. Startup Cult had a song with the punky title God Starve The Queen. Then, in 2015, Gaynor dropped a mixtape, Soft Grunge Love Rap. His last album, 2019's Starry Night Over The Phone, housed the epic Rhythms, which, while redolent of Prince's Purple Rain, was bizarrely never selected as a single (and eclipsed by Gaynor's buzz collab with The Veronicas, Restless).

Previously aligned with Illy's ONETWO stable, Gaynor is releasing Drinking With My Smoking Friends via Believe – and this fourth album, concise at 10 tracks, signals a fresh phase. He's collaborating with a greater cross-section of homegrown musicians, including DMA's members – but there are no 'features'. Drinking With My Smoking Friends is largely produced by the veteran Scott Horscroft – who, not coincidentally, contributed to DMA's' THE GLOW – plus Tigertown's Chris Collins. However, Gaynor also recruits old cohorts like Melbourne chillwaver Japanese Wallpaper, his co-writer on After All This Time.

A decade into a triumphant chart career, Gaynor recorded Drinking With My Smoking Friends as he approached his 30s. Symbolically, the album exudes a bittersweet nostalgia, as well as a longing for freedom and adventure, Gaynor shedding the brittleness of his emo-rap. The shoegazey opener Void – with input from Kllo's Simon Lam – is lilting, mellow and tuneful, Gaynor blithely singing the refrain "You will avoid the void".

Drinking With My Smoking Friends reveals a micro narrative arc about two young lovers escaping the ennui of their (sub)urban lives, Bonnie and Clyde-style. The euphoric Stolen Cars is heartland rock for the cloud rap era, like Bruce Springsteen reimagined. 

Gaynor's sonic moodboard for Drinking With My Smoking Friends spans The Cure, Pixies and Brit-pop Oasis. In some ways, the album could be his counterpart to Kid Cudi's underrated 2015 grunge foray Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven, but it's better realised aesthetically. Gaynor revels in a new musicality: harmonising on Cup Of Tea In The Bath and vocalising expressively throughout. He delivers a gorgeous rock ballad in Bright – rivalling Rhythms for its potential to inspire lighter-waving in arenas, post-COVID.

If there is any continuity between Drinking With My Smoking Friends and Gaynor's past work, it lies in his ability to pen an anthem – be it trap, electro-pop or rock. The singles, like Stolen Cars, are as hooky as Right Now, You Always Know The DJ or In Motion. Yet, overall, Gaynor's songwriting prowess is heightened on Drinking With My Smoking Friends, the nuances genuinely affecting.

In fact, Gaynor hasn't wholly left the hip hop tradition behind. He's still telling gritty stories, only flexing less and observing more. And, though Gaynor desists from being nihilistic, sardonic or self-deprecating on Drinking With My Smoking Friends, those Allday witticisms remain. The Paris End Of Collins St is about Melbourne's poshest precinct – Gaynor turning it into an allegory of capitalist aspiration, pretence and denial, his lyrics facetious and ironic as he unexpectedly channels Lou Reed's sprechgesang (The Jezabels' Hayley Mary and DMA's guitarist Johnny Took are co-writers).

Drinking With My Smoking Friends is an album of romance, transience and feeling. Rock 'n' roll Allday may just be him at his peak.

Find out more about Allday here.