Alt-pop chaos merchants Cry Club are back with their third album High Voltage Anxiety this Friday – and it’s shaping up to be their most fully realised (and fully unhinged) statement yet. Self-produced, self-engineered and completely on their own terms, the record sees the duo of Heather Riley and Jonathon ‘Jono’ Tooke diving headfirst into the emotional and political overwhelm of modern life – from doomscroll-induced brain rot and wealth inequality to burnout, relationships and the slow decay of media literacy – all wrapped in their signature cocktail of industrial pop, punk energy and euphoric chaos.
But beneath the rage (and there’s plenty of it), High Voltage Anxiety is also driven by something deeper: care. Care for their community, their world, and the belief that things can be better – even when everything feels like it’s spiralling. To celebrate the release, Cry Club have taken us inside the album with a full track-by-track breakdown, unpacking the ideas, influences and existential spirals behind each song. And trust us, there’s a lot going on under the hood here. You can pre-order the LP here and read their words down below.
Cry Club ‘ Monster Of The Week’
1. ‘ACT ONE’
JONO: Honestly I’m such a huge Kendrick Lamar fan that I had the moment of realisation that for all that we got right on the last two records, one thing that felt missing was this ambitious world setting thing that so many records I love have. Like when I press play on ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ I immediately hear A WORLD. Always using the concept of album spacing like it would appear on vinyl, we imagined the record as two halves who each could have their own tone setting track to establish the world / but also provide a palate cleanse like you would get at the start of a Pixar movie with their short films. An opportunity to take a deep breath in before we pummel the shit out of you with our heaviest record yet.
HEATHER: When we decided to self-produce this album, we initially toyed with the idea of it being a more heavy-duty concept album. There’s still a pile of songs in our google drive based around that idea that we never quite figured out, but this is one of the songs that survived from that batch! It really sets the tone for the album in a way we haven’t been able to do before, it’s cinematic but still grounded in reality: this is a real conversation we had with people we love, trying to figure out how to make the world a better, more liveable place for everyone. Obviously one album isn’t gonna change the world, but if we can convince at least one listener that they aren’t powerless, it’s worth it.
2. ‘RETALIATE’
J: For the longest time, we had this instrumental idea that we always thought was super exciting but could never turn it into an actual song. We’d swung at it 7 or 8 times, each turning into a different song but never capturing what was so interesting about the core idea – until we FINALLY landed here with Retaliate. Another moment where the direction of the record helped crack the song, the combination of breakbeats and down tuned guitars lead us to what immediately felt like The Answer and the song felt like it immediately worked. I love the combination of post-punk reverb guitars against the 8 string metal ideas in the verse, any time we can really cross over styles I’ll always jump at the chance. Staying in one lane is never interesting for us, so being able to do everything we like in one song is a blessing.
H: Jumping off from the intro, Retaliate is our first solution to the question of “what’s wrong, how could we fix it?” and the result is BURN IT DOWNNNNNNNNNN. Musically, this song is one of the “babies” of a different song that we’ve been working on literally for like? 5 years now? Every time we open up that song, we work on it for a day and then realise we’ve written a completely different song, so we open it in it’s own session and follow that until it’s done. We did have a few shots at Retaliate until landing on this one, it feels like a new ‘Robert Smith’ in the sense that the first version was wayyyyyy too serious, and this final version is the more stream-of-consciousness take on our earlier idea! We really dug through a bunch of club samples Jono has on file and went purely with the things we found the most fun and exciting, which seems to be the eternal solution to all of our songwriting problems. This is a really satisfying combination of our biggest influences as well as trusting ourselves to make something as fun for us as possible.
3. ‘HIGH VOLTAGE ANXIETY’
J: Crazy that this ended up being the title track of the record, one that summarised everything we had been writing about at that point in time, because I barely even remember writing it for a second. From my end, the song just Arrived one day almost fully formed immediately – a combination of hardcore punk, gothic ambience and rave synth intensity that plays out like a dance track. We knew we had something fun but from the very first time we ever played it live it was like setting gasoline on fire, it just ignited the crowd in a way that we’d almost never experienced before. A blessing.
H: Have you dreaded opening social media recently? It feels like an attack on your nervous system to look at the news, look at what hot takes people have on that news, and the backlash to the aforementioned hot takes wallpapered on every newsfeed and FYP. Knowing that our timelines are designed to keep us in these doomscrolling loops and STILL being unable to stop is the inspo for this song and the album title! It’s so far beyond regular anxiety, battling lack of media literacy and reading comprehension when there’s a financial incentive for people to behave like the worst version of themselves. This is a kind of mirror to Retaliate where instead of fighting against the evils of the world, you give up and let it consume you, going completely crazy in the process.
4. ‘BELIEVE’
J: God a miracle that this got to the finish line. In the same way I don’t remember writing High Voltage, this one I remember every painful second of years of trying to make it work. The chorus was just too good to not figure out everything for it, and having the tone set for the rest of the record we were able to finally crack it – sounding like a pop band collaborating with both Korn & Foals somehow. Also I think just the general theme of realising how much something had been holding you back in hindsight is a bit of a forever topic in so many senses, so it really fit well into this anti-capitalist message of the record.
H: This is an older song that we’ve reworked dozens of times, in dozens of genres, but the ‘evil club’ sound is something we’ve wanted to attempt for ages!! It’s narrower in scope than the first few songs, more interpersonal, but still follows the same theme. When you’re so worn down that you’ve lost all the fight in you, it leaves the door open for people to take advantage of you when you’re vulnerable. We were so attached to this “do you wanna believe” hook that feels almost religious, staying close to someone you know is hurting you but unable to think of a life outside of it. The song is so spacey and floaty, looking back on all the red flags with mixed emotions: wondering how you could let that happen to you, but trying to understand and forgive yourself at the same time.
5. ‘FEEL THIS WAY’
J: Probably my favourite non-single, this song feels like it achieves everything we set out to do with this record with flying colours. A personal favourite moment is when the Meshuggah inspired guitars arrive in the first chorus, it feels like we’re able to combine some early noise influences of mine with our current spin towards everything heavy and industrial. Always putting it in a package of pop-structure and accessibility means that we can get away with absolute murder with what’s actually in the song, so the gigantic key change that lands each chorus always feels like “hahaha I can’t believe we got away with that”.
H: I think this is one of my favourites on the album, brutal and driving and empowering all at once. Again, it’s like a mirror to the previous song from another perspective, what if you had the power to call out someone for becoming the thing they promised not to be? The sheer force of the instrumentation makes me feel 10 feet tall, untouchable and righteous above everything, it’s the euphoria of getting the last word and the devastation of pushing someone out of your life when you can’t deal with them anymore.
6. ‘THIS, FOREVER’
J: Last song of the first side of the vinyl record, I think I always like putting something nostalgic in a spot where it’s got a moment to breathe afterwards. There’ll be the moment where someone is listening to the record and it plays this song and then there’ll be the silence before they flip to the next side, which is kind of an intentional part of its construction. Also it feels like a nod to our first record in so many ways, but made more intense and sonically explorative. Amongst so many super heavy songs, you do need a break from the riffs, so touching back on a love of M83 and shoegaze music from my teen years felt like a great way of getting that.
H: Ahhhhhh a breath of fresh air, however bittersweet. Being involved in more activism over the past few years has meant getting front-row-seats to the angst of leftist infighting. It’s painful to have conflict with people who are supposed to be on your side, so have the same goals but be so at-odds in the methods of getting there. It can be so easy to get caught up in these smaller issues instead of the bigger ones, and I’ve learned one of the most important skills is knowing when to let things go, when to be patient, and how to disagree out of love. The love seeps into every part of the song, an acknowledgement of how difficult it is to admit when you feel hurt or when you’re potentially wrong.
7. ‘ACT TWO’
J: And then we’re back in, there’s the relief of something like ‘This, Forever’ and then we need to bring things back up and ready for intensity. So much of this was born out of being in the studio when we were recording drums and gang vocals, they had this beautiful piano there and it just lifted all the ideas we had for this. Amongst however many chopped and distorted elements, the piano is almost a lighthouse that feels like it stays hopeful despite the intensity around it.
H: Slightly more cynical, but far more driven, once you’re on the same page politically as your loved ones, you gotta make space to vent without constantly coming up with solutions. There’s a momentum to this interlude that I love, the shared eye-roll with your bestie when someone says something cooked and you’re letting it go for now but you’ll add it to the list of fucked shit you have to deal with. The piano leitmotif from ‘This, Forever’ is something I’m so proud of in this song, Jono tied all our ongoing threads of the album together so well, it’s hopeful but not naive, tired but not resigned, it’s like a water break on the album and so beautiful.
8. ‘FOR YOUR HEALTH’
J: This song is almost the perfect advice I find hard to take myself – it’s so fun working on creative projects with a single-minded intensity but it’s so easy for that to be manipulated into being a standard everyone is held to. As if someone at their most manic is actually what the music industry finds exciting enough to support, but it’s also deeply risky – how many people can survive setting their lives on fire for the opportunity of gatekeepers giving you the thumbs up? Not many!! Also with our current environment, so many big players are just playing catch up to what artists are able to achieve by themselves with their direct community – so I feel more at piece with our small but dedicated audience than I ever did when thinking about reaching as many people as possible. We’re the weird niche thing now, and that’s actually made us a better band but also more sustainable in the long run.
H: We’ve had so many friends either pause or stop making music completely due to the demands of the industry, but this isn’t limited to smaller or indie artists. The backlash to artists cancelling or postponing tours due to health reasons, the sense of entitlement from fans and labels that makes our art feel like a commodity instead of uhhhh ART is dread-inducing. The thumping, driving beat and the disaffected drawl through the whole song feels so exhausted, and inescapable, the video in particular is something I’m proud of, it’s dramatic but honestly doesn’t feel completely removed from reality! It’s fucked how so many artists feel like the only solution to the burnout and exploitation of the music Industry is to leave altogether. Like we’re up against a machine that none of us can survive in, it’s frustratingggggggg as hell.
9. ‘MONSTER OF THE WEEK’
J: This song was actually the real START of the record, it was the moment of experimentation where we found what felt fresh to us. The combination of breakbeats, distorted guitars and hyperpop resampling techniques all landed together to sound both like the rave-rock of the 90s but also something that felt very new to us. We’d booked a writing trip away after wanting to do one for years, and this is one of the songs that came out of that in early 2023. We’d always liked the song, but there was a moment of realisation maybe a year or so later of “oh THAT is what we’ve been looking for!!!”. With this in tow, we were able to revisit all of our stuck ideas and give them new life, collect our most cohesive musical statement yet but also feel like we’ve finally found a sound that is almost exclusive to our band.
H: Another big political touchpoint on this album is technofeudalism and the enshittification of the internet. It’s no secret how terminally online Jono and I are, and watching the digital spaces we’ve loved become cesspits of ragebait and engagement farming has taken a mental toll on us. It’s exhausting to open up literally every social media app and have it make you feel hopeless and angry every single day- I got a dumbphone for a while to escape it all, which was sick but ended up feeling isolating in a different way. This is us venting our frustrations about everyone falling for inflammatory right-wing rhetoric day in and day out, unintentionally feeding the beast by engaging and trying to dunk on the people starting the fire!!! It’s lose-lose for us, so the song is sonically brutal because it’s the only way we can represent this gross cycle.
10. ‘BURIED!’
J: So many steps to get this perfected, but the constant guiding light was the song at the core of it being right. Getting to the finish point felt like it combined all the big rock guitar moments of the record with these synths that feel like a nod to PS1 era soundtracks, as if this song would have been in a racing game in some alternate future. Despite the 90s trappings, I always feel like this song is almost this record’s My Chemical Romance song – a weirdly emo undercurrent that’s driving an otherwise dance song.
H: This is one of the songs that really set the tone for the album sonically. It happened SO quickly tbh, I think we finished it mostly in one day? And then tweaked the production every few months until we felt it was right. The lyrics are some of my favourite we’ve ever written, the fabric/sewing metaphors in the first verse inspired by the kuffiyah, this piece of cloth being so simple but so powerful at the same time. We thought of the people in our life who have lost so much by speaking out for what’s right, being cast out from the communities they’ve known their whole life because they refuse to compromise on their morals. It shouldn’t have to happen, but it’s wild to be surrounded by people who would start their lives over for what they believe in or who they are as a person.
11. ‘CONSEQUENCES’
J: Keeping the piano motif rolling, this song felt like it finally landed when the balance of pretty and dark was struck. Harsh distortion and ambient piano backing, probably one of the most directly political songs on the record felt like a great fit. With the world feeling like it’s accelerating towards absolute hellfire – having something that’s representing that decline but also maintaining a human element keeps the “we can fix this if we try” element alive was important.
H: The bookend to Retaliate, how much further do we have to take things to see justice in our lifetime? We have a handful of people willing to doom our planet and society at large in pursuit of money, that will mean nothing to them when they’re dead, but literally risk our lives in the meantime. We wanted to write something that feels like a mob marching up to the billionaires with the guillotine at the ready, a promise that they will be remembered as the ones responsible for the decline of human life as a whole. It’s an explosion of distilled contempt, we know exactly who to blame so why haven’t we done anything? We even had to rewrite the lyrics to be more relevant as the AI bubble has grown more evil since our first draft of the song. Yikes.
12. ‘DESPITE EVERYTHING’
J: The farewell song! We’d had this song sitting in our Google Drive for a lifetime, written during the Melbourne lockdowns, and as the record started to take shape it felt like this was a way of saying “yes, shit is absolutely fucked, but maintaining a sense of self is actually one of the things that can help you keep fighting”. We always have this innate desire to look back at our younger selves with both regret and understanding in equal measure, so this song felt like a way of acknowledging that while also connecting to the current moment. We also snuck a bunch of references to our older songs in here as well, like there’s flashes of ‘Nine of Swords’ running throughout!
H: So Jono and I have been fans of this Youtuber called Super Eyepatch Wolf for a long time. His videos feel so in-line with our music in terms of how he allows himself to get emotional or passionate about whatever he’s talking about. During COVID lockdowns, I watched his analysis of the video game Undertale and the fan culture surrounding it, and we were so taken with this moment where the player character looks in the mirror at the start of the game, and the flavour text says “It’s you!”. Finding that same mirror at the end of the game has altered text that says “Despite everything, it’s still you.” It’s been kicking around in our minds for years, it affected me so much that we used it as a lyrical touchpoint before ever playing the game! Having played it now, it still means so much to me to look back on my life and the choices that lead me to this moment. No matter how many gripes I have with the industry, with politics, with society, I’m still here. We’re still here together, and our younger selves would be so proud of us. The second little easter egg was altering the last line of the song to reference a line from Baldur’s Gate 3, “still breathing, despite everything”. It felt like a beautiful full circle moment of accepting yourself as you are in this point in your life, and promising yourself to keep going despite everything
Further Reading
Cry Club Have Announced Their Third Album, ‘High Voltage Anxiety’
