No matter how chirpy and upbeat Ball Park Music may sound, there’s usually something darker and more nuanced at play just under the surface. Take the Brisbane band’s 2011 breakthrough “It’s Nice to Be Alive,” which contrasts handclaps and its feel-good titular sentiment with some sneaky pokes at religion and pleas for romance. The song has remained a sing-along calling card for singer/guitarist Sam Cromack and company, getting voted in at No. 49 on triple j’s 2025 poll of the best 100 Australian songs. Yet, Ball Park Music have consistently stretched their sound beyond earworm indie-pop, adding unexpected heft to 2014’s brooding “She Only Loves Me When I’m There.” Cromack’s lyrical voice has lost none of its playful spikiness over the years, as he swears and quips his way through 2017’s “Exactly How You Are”—a stubborn celebration of acceptance and individuality—and chronicles the daunting weight of happiness over the quiet-to-loud catharsis of 2020’s “Cherub.” And on 2024’s “Please Don’t Move to Melbourne,” he riffs on the perennial exodus of Brisbanites to would-be greener pastures in what’s actually another clear-eyed love song in a catalog crowded with them.