This spring, Australia’s much loved strummers of outsider folk return with their fifth studio album, No Poets.

But Lower Plenty are poets. They give us prose on power, words on distance and stories of defeat. This is everyday prose but not the banal stuff. Lessons of triumph are delivered in a haze of self-deprecation. Time wasters are celebrated. Honest admissions from the pretenders are elevated. In this honesty, Lower Plenty are always present. That’s why their music feels so close.

The familiar names of their previous albums ring like a litany of bad memories. Mean, Hard Rubbish, Life/Thrills, Sister Sister. Modern classics. Someone to tell your story. Someone to make you feel like you have a voice, like the years spent marking time won’t be forgotten; someone to remember that you were here.

Glorious downer-folk from Al, Jensen, Daniel and Sarah.