Pond is back with a new album, and this time, its members are tightening the screws. The Australian psych mainstay’s Terrestrials is out June 19 via its newly launched imprint Mangovision through Secretly Distribution. Alongside the news comes lead single “Two Hands” and a video made by Sam Kristofski (“with heaps of help from Tess Thompson, Kate Green and Christian Dillon”).
Frontman Nick Allbrook wrote the song in response to the destruction of Juukan Gorge in Western Australia by mining giant Rio Tinto. “You’ve got every right to be very fucking angry about this injustice,” he said, imagining how differently the world might react if similarly sacred Western landmarks were erased in the name of corporate expansion.
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The accompanying video, which was shot in the punishing heat of rural Western Australia, leans into the project’s off-kilter visual language with dust, engines and chaos.
Terrestrials marks Pond’s 11th album, but it comes with a self-imposed rulebook: no fuzz pedals, no ballads and, as Allbrook proclaims, “no Pink Floyd shit.” Instead, the record pulls from a specific strain of ’80s Australian rock, filtering it through a darker, post-punk lens inspired by bands like the Sisters of Mercy and Magazine. The guiding question? Whether goths could drink a beer to it.
As ever with Pond, the lineup overlaps with the broader Aussie psych ecosystem, most notably multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson, who also plays in Tame Impala. Watson is set to pull double duty this summer, touring sold-out arenas with Tame Impala while also joining Pond for a new run of U.S. headline dates from July through September, in addition to shows supporting Djo.
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