Sometimes all you need is an expertly crafted power-pop chorus to slice through the garbage and ground you in the simple pleasures of this life on Earth. Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey has spent the past seven years churning out sharply observed pop-punk confections about bad relationships, self-doubt, and bad relationships leading to self-doubt; it’s all been leading up to “You’ll Never Get Your Money Back,” a tour de force of post-breakup catharsis from her new album The Answer Is Always Yes. The guitars chime and swell into the kind of sweaty, beer-soaked nirvana that Japandroids or Titus Andronicus (or, hell, even the Replacements) could whip up in their heyday, leaving it all on the barroom floor. “Give all you have, get nothing back/Love never leaves you in the black,” Lahey sings with a sneer, coming to terms with the fact that her ex is never actually going to Venmo her for that back rent they owe. And she is just going to have to be OK with that.
