There’s a strange level of joy knowing that an album of such an immense quality as Don’t Let The Kids Win was written and released by an artist that grew up not too far from where I did. Much of where I grew up is quite maligned and often only makes the media headlines for negative reasons. But for someone like Julia Jacklin to release a debut album as eloquent and beautifully daunting as she has, it makes my heart-strings swell with pride and fist pump like the best of them (I’m looking at you, Karl Stefanovic).
Now that I’ve attempted to seem cool by proxy, you need to know something about the Blue Mountains-raised artist and her debut LP, Don’t Let The Kids Win: It’s an absolute juice fest full of wistfully brilliant tunes. Jacklin is infinitely more talented than I, and I’m struggling to find the best words to talk about how much I’ve enjoyed learning about and listening to DLTKW, but here goes.
Opening track “Pool Party” is the taste of the album you need to have before deciding whether or not you’re going to invest the next forty minutes to listening to DLTKW in full. I’d suggest you do. While the album definitely has some tracks more catchier than others, it is an album that should be listened to in its entirety. “Pool Party” has a little bit of a Mystery Jets‘ “Flakes” vibe to it, which is more than fine with me.
Up next is “Leadlight”, a track that is as equally heartbreaking as it is uplifting and enchantingly filled with promise. It’s a slightly fuller sounding track than “Pool Party”, and has one of the best closing thirty seconds of any track you’re likely to hear before the year closes out.
There’s a distinct difference between “Coming of Age” and the previous two tracks. Without sounding clichéd, “Coming of Age” shows the maturity Jacklin had promised on her earlier singles.
One thing you notice on DLTKW, is the ability Jacklin’s voice has to create depth on the tracks, despite being relatively softly spoken. While this also has something to with the choice of instrumentation, her voice speaks volumes for a musician that has a wealth of knowledge and strength you’d expect from someone who has released multiple albums. This is mostly evident on “Elizabeth” and “Motherland”. Hers is a voice of tender storytelling and heartbreak, especially on “LA Dream”, where she concludes that, “I guess you were not meant to be mine”.
“Small Talk” literally centres on the opinion that a younger version of her father looks like the Scrubs actor Zach Braff. With a definite early Laura Marling vibe to it, it’s here that the indie-folk of the album begins to become much more clear. Your heart breaks with the imagery of “Same Airport, Different Man”, as Jacklin speaks of lost love and loneliness. As the album begins to draw to a close, the swelling and outstanding “Hay Plain” makes an appearance. “Hay Plain” is the type of song you expect to close out her live sets in the future.
Closing out the album is the titular “Don’t Let The Kids Win”, a track that pretty much sums up what Jacklin has created on the LP. Don’t Let The Kids Win is a debut that shows ridiculous levels of promise. With female Australian indie music hitting an unprecedented level of quality and success at the moment, you sense Don’t Let The Kids Win is just the beginning for a musician who will surely take her game to another level and continue to surprise the masses with her quality music and stories.
Review Score: 8.1 out of 10.
Don’t Let The Kids Win is out now.
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