Studio album / WXI-REL-002
At Least I'm Free
Studio album, 12 August 2022
Heavier and more deliberate than the debut, and the last record made by the full line-up.
The record and its year
At Least I'm Free was released on 12 August 2022 through Dew Process and reached number 20 on the ARIA albums chart. It is the second album, and the last record made by the full line-up.
"Most Hated Girl" preceded it in 2021 and won the Rock Award at the Queensland Music Awards in 2022, the band's second win there after Video of the Year in 2018. "Dangerous", "Help Me Hell" and "Read Receipts" followed in the album year itself. A third Rock Award, for "No Doz", came in 2023.
The line-up was thinning while it was made. Tom Griffin left in 2021 after six years on bass and James Gatling left in 2022, so the group that finished this record was smaller than the one that started the cycle.
What follows is the hiatus: announced in April 2023, with farewell shows at The Triffid in Brisbane that June. Read backwards from there, this album is the end of one arrangement rather than the middle of it.
It was issued on CD, vinyl and digitally, the same three formats as Big Grief three years before it. That consistency is worth recording because it is one of the few things about the two albums that did not change: the label held, the formats held, and the line-up did not.
Four singles led into it, which is more than any other WAAX record carries, and three of them arrived in the album year itself. Set against the two singles around Holy Sick, the difference is not ambition so much as apparatus - a label release schedules its lead-ins, and a self-released EP has nobody to schedule them.
Line-up across 2021 - 2023
- Maz DeVita
- Tom Bloomfield
- Ewan Birtwell
- James Gatling
Tenure years are the spine of the line-up record. Per-track credits are not held.
Singles of the period
- Most Hated Girl 2021
- Dangerous 2022
- Help Me Hell 2022
- Read Receipts 2022
Recorded by title and year only.
Live around this record
| Year | Engagement | City |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Farewell shows, The Triffid | Brisbane |
What this entry does not hold
No tracklist, and no per-track credits. Neither can be checked against a source this archive holds, and printing an unverified one would make the rest of the entry harder to trust rather than easier.
No sleeve artwork either. The graphic above was made for this index; the real artwork for At Least I'm Free remains the copyright of its holders and is not reproduced here.
What it does hold
A release date and a label that can both be checked, the formats it was issued on, the chart position where one exists, and the core line-up across the period around it. Every live row listed on this page comes from a festival schedule, a promoter calendar, a tour announcement or a dated review.
Where two of those disagree, the entry keeps the more conservative reading and says so rather than picking a side quietly. Where only one exists, it is still recorded, because a single sourced listing is worth more than a confident guess. Nothing on this page was filled in to make the entry look more complete than the evidence behind it.
Questions about At Least I'm Free
Curious about the band, the records, or how this archive decides what to record? Start here.
When was At Least I'm Free released?
12 August 2022, through Dew Process. It was issued on cd, vinyl, digital.
How did At Least I'm Free chart?
It peaked at number 20 on the ARIA albums chart.
Who played on At Least I'm Free?
The core line-up across 2021 - 2023 was Maz DeVita, Tom Bloomfield, Ewan Birtwell, James Gatling. This index records tenure years rather than per-track credits, so it does not attribute individual parts.
Which singles belong to this period?
Most Hated Girl, Dangerous, Help Me Hell, Read Receipts. Singles are recorded by title and year only.
