Hailing from Sydney and Wollongong, Sarah Jane & The Noise make their debut with an EP that makes no attempt to hide its influences. Steeped in ’90s alt-rock, ‘happiness in rearview‘ leans on mid-tempo pacing, prominent bass lines, and distortion doing much of the emotional heavy lifting.
‘brain’ opens the EP, pulling away from archetypal grunge. It builds tension without ever quite exploding, focusing instead on a repetitive, hypnotic groove, closer in spirit to A Perfect Circle than anything else.
‘daisies’ moves into more familiar territory: a cyclical riff, a straightforward verse-chorus structure, and vocals oscillating between apathy and despair. Pure In Utero energy. ‘i don’t wanna’ brings urgency, shifting the weight of grunge toward a more restrained, post-punk tension (there’s a touch of Sprints here), while ‘tasteless tongues’ lets its tension simmer before releasing it in a wall of distortion. ‘feels like yesterday’ sits between these modes, pairing spacious verses with a more melodic chorus built on cleaner, less distorted guitars.
Lyrically, the EP occupies a consistent mental space, returning to themes of dissociation, guilt, emotional exhaustion and broken communication, forming an inner landscape that aligns naturally with the sound.
“happiness in rearview is the messy, uncomfortable inner dialogue we have to confront before we are able to grow and the journey we have to undertake before we can look back with clarity” – Sarah Jane
As a debut, happiness in rearview delivers. The quality is clear in the songwriting, production and cohesion, but the EP leaves open the question of direction. Somewhere between familiar grunge territory and a more restrained, atmospheric approach, the band still seems to be finding its footing. The foundations are there; the path forward remains to be defined.
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