Since forming in Sydney in 2012, Stand Atlantic have outgrown the pop-punk tag with which they were originally labelled. That was warranted on early releases such as “Coffee at Midnight”, “Lost My Cool” and “Bullfrog”, but as their career has continued, so too has their musical evolution. Indeed, by the time they released their second album, 2020’s Pink Elephant, the band was already augmenting its punk rock foundations with glitchy electro and pitch-shifted vocals (“Wavelength”) and hip-hop (“Jurassic Park”), while 2022 follow-up f.e.a.r. featured collaborations with artists such as emo-rapper nothing,nowhere. (“Deathwish”) and rapper Tom The Mail Man (“dumb”). (It’s no coincidence the group’s Like A Version contributions see them steering clear of pop-punk in favour of Juice WRLD’s “Righteous” and Post Malone’s “Chemical”.) Fourth album WAS HERE furthers Stand Atlantic’s commitment to evolution as they push the boundaries of their sound to extremes, without compromising their love of melody and memorability. The electro-power-pop of “GIRL$” (featuring PVRIS and Bruses) stands in contrast to the brutal, near-industrial metal of “CRIMINAL” (featuring Sydney metalcore crew Polaris); the modern rock of “KILL[H]ER” with the pure pop of “LOVE U ANYWAY”. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is vocalist Bonnie Fraser’s razor-sharp and ultra-personal lyrics, tackling online trolls (“hair out”), those you need to cut out of your life before they drag you down (“pity party”, featuring Royal & the Serpent), the perils of cultivating emotional turmoil just to create songwriting material (“CRIMINAL”) and compromising your true self to fit into a situation (“KILL[H]ER”).