SPIRITUAL GROWTH is the 2nd full length release from the nipaluna/Hobart punk band RABBIT, released independently by the band on January 31st, 2025. Recorded and mixed by Chris Townend at Frying Pan Studios, a terrifying musical dream factory on the muddy side of the Derwent where the Cadbury factory dumps its waste, SPIRITUAL GROWTH showcases 11 songs of plectrum-grinding guitar punk and power ballads, mostly about dogs and fruit.

The album pushes tempos faster than previous releases and drifts away from the power-pop of yore. Many of the songs lean further into the progenitive bosom of celibate rifles and saints type punk, with nibblings of post-hardcore plinking and blonking. 

Stylistic influences transgress affectionately; the song DANNY is a straight-down-the-line folk song fed into a car crusher, HOME & AWAY is a 90s TV theme sitting on an ant nest, CATHY COME HOME uses some sort of sleeper Serialist progression that nobody noticed until it was too late. 

However, as varied as the musical influences are the album is entirely cohesive, tied together by Maggie Edwards’ crushed velvet melodies and the angle-grinder guitar skranking of Bobby K’s lipoma. Rhythmic muscle is delivered in the form of Willy Wires powerful drum whacks, and new RABBIT beachcomber Robbie Fisher provides ripplingly healthy figures in the bass. It’s a personal trainer’s dream record… very taut, very physical.

The first single from the album, DOLLARMITES, digests the concise songwriting of Guided By Voices and kind of sums up what the album is about really, if it’s about anything at all; being fed up with non-choices masquerading as choices, problems disguised as solutions, consumption disguised as spirituality. Which carcinogen to wear to the gig? If nobody can tell the difference between real carcinogens and fake carcinogens does it matter? Is there a podcast? 

THE LIPOMA IS BENIGN.

Release: 31 January, 2025, Independent.