Luke Hemmings’ Shakes: A Dreamy mix of Coldplay, The Shins, Australia and Valium

Aussie artist Luke Hemmings has released his record Boy and it is one of my pleasant surprise discoveries of 2024. Luke is following a recent Australian solo pop revival led by Kid LAROI and Troye Sivan. These are very poppy tracks, usually about love, which are backed by lush syth soundscapes. This is a recent pop trend in Australia and picks up a bit from the Kylie Minogue club days of a few decades ago. I love this trend and how these artists can inject warmth and complex pop arrangements within a largely electro/synth based style.

Musically, Hemmings’ track Shakes reminds me of Coldplay’s X&Y in a lot of respects. Even though Hemmings’ lush electric landscape is less guitar and drum heavy than Coldplay’s record, it has the same epic vastness. Both X&Y and Shakes have this huge musical landscape that seems to stretch forever. It’s the track’s vastness and expanse that gives Shakes its epic scale. I’m talking Dune 2 scale. It is surprising how Hemmings’ can makes such a large scale song with only a handful of elements. This is not your wall of sound track that can crush you under its weight, but a floating track the size of the Pacific Ocean.

Hemmings’ vocal lacks the depth of Troye Sivan, but their angelic falcetto is compelling. Moreover, the vocal has a sharpness to it that acts as a great foil to the track’s lush musical landscape. Even though I am talking in very esoteric terms about Hemming’s vocal, it has a great pop energy to it that makes the track work. Lyrically we are in the love song category, which is not far off other Aussie synth pop stars like Sivan and Kid LAROI. However, at times his vocal falls so far back in the mix it becomes more of a vibe than a vehicle for lyrics. This doesn’t bother me too much, because I am mostly looking for a vibe when listening to this genre.

The new wave pop synth is here with vocals way back in the mix and atmospheric synth stretching on for miles…well…kilometres in this instance. I can see how the mixing and vibe-ness, for lack of a better term, of Shakes and tracks like it may not be people’s cup of tea. However, for me, this is a warm pool of tea that I want to swim in forever.

Listen to Shakes