Breathe by Midnight Oil

Breathe, Midnight Oil's ninth studio album, came out on Columbia on 15 October 1996, with Malcolm Burn producing, three years after Earth and Sun and Moon. Peter Garrett is still out front, with Jim Moginie on guitar and keyboards, Martin Rotsey on guitar, Bones Hillman on bass and Rob Hirst on drums, but the barricade-storming roar has been dialed down.

Australian music historian Ian McFarlane heard it as loose and raw, close to low-key, and that fits: the songs have a rumpled, played-in-the-room feel, less stadium bluster and more grit under the fingernails. "Surf's Up Tonight" is the sunniest thing here, a laid-back ride that makes a strong case for the band's gentler side. It went to No. 3 on the ARIA albums chart at home and reached the top 40 in New Zealand and Switzerland as well.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.