"I can’t help the attention / I’d never push it away / As my heart comes to rest / Playing rapid fire chess..."
The darkly beautiful melancholia and drunken stumbles of "Coming Up Springs", by Melbourne - Australia alt rock band Bollard, might feel like a comforting blanket soundtrack when you are feeling the most lost. I am not sure if during this period, this song will wipe up your tears or hold up a hard withered mirror but it will certainly move you. The airy fog it creates with wonderful interplaying crystalline guitar sounds, pummeling stoic drums and orchestrated sadness holding up Tom Walsh's crushed vocal countenance all works as both an emotional hair of the dog or antidote depending on your body's constitution.
The vocal landscape, full of puzzle pieced wordplay has it's own mayhemic sense of confusion, (maybe) of how your own perceptions can sometimes be your own worst enemy. In the beginning and in the end, the feels here are giving me an amalgam of the artistic whittlings of The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, Bauhaus, Have a Nice Life (at least at the time of me writing my thoughts down).
Great filmic, evocative song that will undoubtedly live in my head and heart for sometime and one that I will revisit from time to time, maybe especially when I need to.
Bollard's 3rd full length, "Heat" drops tomorrow- 10/25/26.
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[Bollard is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia, composed of Tom Walsh, Ju Shung (Wet Kiss, Raindogs), Benton Ching, Marni Walsh, Declan Moran and Wes Faulkner. Since their inception in 2018, Bollard have become a staple of the live music scene in Melbourne. Their music blends elements of post-punk, shoegaze and art rock, creating a sonic landscape that is both chaotic and introspective.]
[Their debut album, “Trawlers" – released to local acclaim in 2018 – was described by Hysteria Magazine as a “bewildering release” and a “mutant child of shoegaze, rock, indie and jazz”, and by Trouble Juice as "a chaotic and wild introduction to an exciting band,” setting the tone for the band’s ever-evolving pursuit of sonic distinction. This was followed up by 2019’s "Beware the Atto Fox" EP, which took the band’s rougher garage roots towards a more introspective sound.]
[2023 saw the band gain further momentum both at home and internationally with the release of the track “Interview with a Doll” on cult German label Public Possession’s Chill Pill compilation, as well as the release of their second full-length album “Lo”. Two years in the making, the album is a concise and measured work that distills the sprawling influences of the band's previous offerings, crystalizing them in a manner that is both novel yet distinctly recognizable as Bollard.]
[This was followed in quick succession in 2024 by their 2nd EP and 4th release "I Was Wide Open." This album showed their ability to produce a polished sound as well as shift gears with ease.]
LYRICS
[2023 saw the band gain further momentum both at home and internationally with the release of the track “Interview with a Doll” on cult German label Public Possession’s Chill Pill compilation, as well as the release of their second full-length album “Lo”. Two years in the making, the album is a concise and measured work that distills the sprawling influences of the band's previous offerings, crystalizing them in a manner that is both novel yet distinctly recognizable as Bollard.]
[This was followed in quick succession in 2024 by their 2nd EP and 4th release "I Was Wide Open." This album showed their ability to produce a polished sound as well as shift gears with ease.]
[2026 sees them release their 3rd full length album "Heat." This body of work confirms their place as one of Melbourne's most enigmatic artists, with an eclectic sound centred around melodic guitar riffs and intricate songwriting.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
LYRICS
I can’t help the attention
I’d never push it away
As my heart comes to rest
Playing rapid fire chess
This could take some time
It’s nothing like I’d see and I
I’m in Buda not in Pest
Doing my Peter Best
In a cauterized mess
I can’t sleep
A single night
Without getting up,
Because the body is the mind
It’s comforting I don’t know why
It’s something that you read
In my credit card theft
Putting hair on my chest
Swam across from Alcatraz
I pull it apart
I can’t sleep
One single night
Without getting up
Without falling in
When the day is my own
And time won’t begin
And the telephone rings
Time won’t begin
As I like awake
When the day’s my own
Your cellulose veins
By the light of the phone
And I can’t wait
The day is my own
The knock off matisse
And the tea that’s gone cold
As I like awake
When the day’s my own
Your cellulose veins
By the light of the phone
I can’t wait
I can’t wait
For the time to begin
And the time won’t begin
I cannot help the attention
I’d never push it away
Bollard, indie rock, post punk, shoegaze, emotional, melancholia, sparse, vast, sophisticated,f olk indie, "Coming Up Springs", Melbourne Australia, darkly beautiful, 3rd full length album "Heat",
I’d never push it away
As my heart comes to rest
Playing rapid fire chess
This could take some time
It’s nothing like I’d see and I
I’m in Buda not in Pest
Doing my Peter Best
In a cauterized mess
I can’t sleep
A single night
Without getting up,
Because the body is the mind
It’s comforting I don’t know why
It’s something that you read
In my credit card theft
Putting hair on my chest
Swam across from Alcatraz
I pull it apart
I can’t sleep
One single night
Without getting up
Without falling in
When the day is my own
And time won’t begin
And the telephone rings
Time won’t begin
As I like awake
When the day’s my own
Your cellulose veins
By the light of the phone
And I can’t wait
The day is my own
The knock off matisse
And the tea that’s gone cold
As I like awake
When the day’s my own
Your cellulose veins
By the light of the phone
I can’t wait
I can’t wait
For the time to begin
And the time won’t begin
I cannot help the attention
I’d never push it away
credits
released September 25, 2026
Mixed by Lam Jushung
Trumpet by Josh De Coster
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3YpN5GsxudIC6EgsT2R7xG
https://soundcloud.com/user-511906485
https://bollardband.bandcamp.com/track/coming-up-springs
https://www.instagram.com/abandcalledbollard/
https://www.facebook.com/thebandbollard/
Bollard is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia, composed of Tom Walsh, Ju Shung (Wet Kiss, Raindogs), Benton Ching, Marni Walsh, Declan Moran and Wes Faulkner. Since their inception in 2018, Bollard have become a staple of the live music scene in Melbourne. Their music blends elements of post-punk, shoegaze and art rock, creating a sonic landscape that is both chaotic and introspective.
Mixed by Lam Jushung
Trumpet by Josh De Coster
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3YpN5GsxudIC6EgsT2R7xG
https://soundcloud.com/user-511906485
https://bollardband.bandcamp.com/track/coming-up-springs
https://www.instagram.com/abandcalledbollard/
https://www.facebook.com/thebandbollard/
Bollard is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia, composed of Tom Walsh, Ju Shung (Wet Kiss, Raindogs), Benton Ching, Marni Walsh, Declan Moran and Wes Faulkner. Since their inception in 2018, Bollard have become a staple of the live music scene in Melbourne. Their music blends elements of post-punk, shoegaze and art rock, creating a sonic landscape that is both chaotic and introspective.
Bollard, indie rock, post punk, shoegaze, emotional, melancholia, sparse, vast, sophisticated,f olk indie, "Coming Up Springs", Melbourne Australia, darkly beautiful, 3rd full length album "Heat",
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