Rare is the band that emerges with its sound fully formed, but when Slowly Slowly rose up out of Melbourne in 2015 it was pretty much intact. Debut single “Empty Lungs” already harboured their knack for combining anthemic yet tender emo-rock melodies à la Jimmy Eat World with a full-bodied guitar attack, the very same quality that would later be polished into powerful, hook-laden songs such as 2021’s “Blueprint” (about the best party vocalist/guitarist Ben Stewart ever attended) and the following year’s “Longshot”. Don’t, however, assume that by setting their musical template early Slowly Slowly closed the door on evolution. Witness the dance-pop infused “Nothing On” as proof of their creative growth. The band’s choice of covers for triple j’s Like A Version series is telling: blink-182’s classic “I Miss You” is a nod to their punk-rock roots, while Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” (which they turn into a forceful rock epic halfway through) is indicative of the lyrical depth and emotion Stewart infuses into their songs. The singer drapes his lyrics in colourful imagery that is at times humorous (“But have you ever seen a jellyfish?/Now that shit’s crazy,” he quips in “Jellyfish”) and often self-deprecating (“I got no money, I got no car/So I know we won’t get far,” he sings in “Death Proof”). The overriding sentiment is, however, never less than heartfelt, such as on his duet with Tasmanian singer Bec Stevens in “Safety Switch”, in which they declare, “I think we’ll be all right if I fill up the cracks with apologies and never take them back.”