Kisschasy’s Darren Cordeux Finds His Way Home On ‘The Terrors Of Comfort’

“Life gets in the way.” There’s probably no better statement from Kisschasy frontman Darren Cordeux to explain the 17-year gap between albums from the beloved Melbourne group.

Cordeux tried to write a fourth album after 2009’s Seizures, but the resulting collection of songs didn’t cut it, to the point where they literally called it a day in order preserve the band’s legacy, only reuniting in recent years for various tours across the country.

With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine they’d even entertain the idea of a new album if the music wasn’t that good, especially given how much time has passed.

If you asked a long-time listener what they wanted from a fourth Kisschasy album, they’d probably cast their mind back to hits from previous records, but the band’s new collection of songs, The Terrors Of Comfort, set to drop on February 13, doesn’t retread old territory; it carves a new path.

“It was when I wrote Parasite, which was the second song I wrote for the album after Bad News Baby, that I realised, ‘Wow, okay, it doesn’t sound like a Kisschasy song that’s been released before, but it sounds to me like Kisschasy,’” Cordeux shares.

“I realised it’s not so much about the genre or about the sonics so much as it is about the essence of it. I think there’s those little things that make up the DNA of a band or an artist that allows the artists that I like – that I consider good artists – to kind of move around genre-wise, but still keep what is essentially them.

“It’s like a good artist – you can tell it’s them by just a few paint strokes. I really like to think that we have that and it’s not about what colours we’re using; it’s about the fact that that brush is in our hands.” 

The only real comparison you can draw to previous albums is the fact that The Terrors Of Comfort is balanced; it ebbs and flows well, and hits all the right beats. It’s heavy (Digital Saviour, Mystery Misery), poppy (Bad News Baby, Your Girlfriend), and contemplative when it needs to be (the aptly titled The Quiet Sound and album closer Better).

It’s catchy guitar-pop rock that doesn’t take itself too seriously but also says something important to its intended audience and potential new fans. It leans into nostalgia from time to time (perhaps unintentionally) without bogging itself down with history or really seeming to care if it does indeed follow on directly from what’s come before it, because the songs stand on their own.

Digital Saviour proves they haven’t lost their edge; it’s the heaviest track on the record, and will make you yearn for summer festivals. Likewise, Mystery Misery sees each member firing on all cylinders and highlights the diversity of Cordeux’s vocals, which have sharpened since Seizures. If you needed more proof of that, see the second chorus of single Parasite in which he pushes his voice to its limits to great effect.

Visceral one-liners in Uncomfortably Numb are a prime example of Cordeux’s understated brilliance as a lyricist, on a track that’s just aching to be added to the band’s setlist with its swaying chorus and big vocal hooks.

The chorus of the cheeky, riff-laden number Your Girlfriend is probably as close as the album gets to picking up where Seizures left off, but that’s only a passing thought as the song has so much more to offer.

“If we want to talk about Seizures… I love Seizures, but I think that the flaw with Seizures was that it was almost more a solo album than it was a Kisschasy album because I was almost ignoring, not completely ignoring, but almost ignoring that thing that I was saying about this album that was like I realised there’s an essence to our band.

“And I was just kind of going on my own whims at that point, being like, ‘I want to make this kind of record.’ And maybe it was because I’d had such a good hit rate with the stuff we did before that I thought everything I could do would be perfect, and it would work great for Kisschasy. And then when I look back at Seizures now, I’m kind of like, ‘Okay, well, there’s some songs on there, and I think, well, okay, that was not really a Kisschasy song.’

“It took me that time since that album, lessons learned from that album, lessons learned from the album afterwards that we’ve spoken about and never got released. And then there’s time away from the band to realise what makes our band special, what I missed about it.

“It’s really interesting because I don’t know, if we had stayed together, if I would have come to the same conclusion by now.”

The Terrors Of Comfort is deeply personal for Cordeux, for a number of reasons. The overall theme of the album, best captured in Uncomfortably Numb, explores how comfort can be a bad thing. Over the years, Cordeux has sought comfort to avoid “uncomfortable truths”, which resulted in him being hospitalised at one point.

“I remember a few years ago when my Dad had his stroke, and I went through a real big drug problem, and it was kind of like this thing where I just didn’t want to deal with the reality of the situation,” he shares.

“That was one of those things where I kind of just went down this dark path as a way of not facing the reality of my situation. And of course, it just made everything so much worse on the back end. That’s where those terrors come from.

“And it’s the same thing – I’ve been in relationships where I’ve lied to myself about ‘This could work’ or ‘This is just a rough patch we’re going through’ or something like that because I was afraid to be alone. There are many things like that.”

Despite some of the darker themes surrounding the new album, it still has that trademark Kisschasy positivity. 

“I don’t know if I have the ability to make music that’s that dark,” Cordeux tells. “And I think it’s probably because I’ve always found music to be a liberating force. It’s always been an escape, but some people can really lean into that darkness, and aesthetically, it comes out dark.

“I think that’s also to do with something as simple as the fact that my voice… I don’t have this dark, gravelly Tom Waits voice, which I would love to have, but I know what suits our sound, and I know what suits our kind of, like I said before, the cadence of it. 

“And that’s just the way I’ve always done it. I don’t know if it’s a subconscious thing. Just when I pick up a guitar or play something out on the keys or whatever, and it comes out, it tends to be something that has a light in a tunnel. 

“It’s a little bit optimistic, despite the dark path I have to take to find that light. It kind of just ends up that way. And I think it always has been that escape for me, so it would feel almost dishonest to try and make it sound dark when it’s actually, for me, my happy place.”

The Terrors Of Comfort saw Cordeux finally find his way back to that happy place. In recent years, the singer has gone into detail about their scrapped fourth album, frequently stating that it was a blow to his self-confidence, but not articulating just how much of an impact it had on him. He said that after that experience, “It was comfortable to not make music”. 

“My wife [Kiara], when we got together, back in 2019, she had no idea about my existence in Australia with Kisschasy. I wouldn’t talk about it. I would not talk about it to anybody. And anytime anybody would get into a conversation about music, I would just shut down. It was like, ‘This broke my heart too much.’”

As the world was coming out of COVID, Cordeux found himself in a room again with bandmates Joel Vanderuit, Sean Thomas and Karl Ammitzboll, preparing for reunion shows at Good Things Festival in 2022.

“Before we did Good Things, we did this kind of secret show, which was at The Gem in Collingwood in Melbourne. And I’d been away from Australia since 2016. I didn’t really know the climate. I had no idea that people were going to show up.

“So, when we played that show, and it was packed, even though it was only like… I don’t know how many people were there, maybe 200, there was just this energy in the room and this look on the people’s faces and this connection between us and them that you can tell that we had something special. 

“It’s been a long kind of healing process for me to come back around and really embrace the things that this band did. And it’s been really kind of liberating for me. Music can really break your heart, and you see it happening now. We’re living in a time where I really feel for musicians now, like artists, because when I was growing up, I never knew how big a band was, really. I just liked them, you know what I mean?

“And then when I found other people who liked them, I’m like, ‘That’s fucking sick.’ But now there’s automatically a number attached to your band. There’s a number on social media, there’s a number on Spotify, there’s a number on everything.

“It’s an industry that’s rife with mental health issues. I went through my own version of that, and I’ve gratefully come to a point now where I feel so content and lucky that I’ve even had the opportunity with the band that I’ve had. And I feel like it would be wrong to throw it away. And it just took me a while to embrace it again. And that’s why we’re here having this chat now, I guess.”

Cordeux’s newfound appreciation for Kisschasy comes through in The Terrors Of Comfort loud and clear.

“I found myself listening to this album. I’ll go through a phase with everything I do, Kisschasy or not, and I’ll listen to it, and I’ll listen to it for a while because I rarely write things that I’m not a fan of. I want to write things that I want to listen to. I’m selfish like that,” he jokes, “but this is the first time I’ve done it for as long as I have and not been like, ‘Oh, damn, I wish I didn’t do that. I wish I’d changed that, or I’m bored of this now.’ I’m really not. I really still dig it.”

This is an album in the truest sense of the word. While the first two singles, Lie To Me and Parasite, were a great way to get reacquainted with the band, it’s when they’re put into context with the rest of the album that you truly understand what the band are wanting to articulate.

Listening through is like reuniting with an old friend you haven’t seen in years, and everything just clicks into place. You’re both different, life has happened, but you can still connect with each other like you used to. Every song feels like a new story being told, and you hang on every word, not only because of the connection you used to have, but because it’s genuinely interesting.

It’s an album they couldn’t have made until now, and it’s well worth the wait. This is the Kisschasy album that fans didn’t know they needed.

“It really does symbolise everything that I think is great about our band.” 

Kisschasy will celebrate the release of ‘The Terrors Of Comfort’, out Feb 13, with a national tour in support of Good Charlotte and Yellowcard, kicking off Feb 17.

GOOD CHARLOTTE

MOTEL DU CAP 2026 AUSTRALIAN TOUR

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS YELLOWCARD AND KISSCHASY

Tuesday 17 February – RAC Arena, Perth TICKETS

Thursday 19 February – Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane TICKETS

Saturday 21 February – Bendigo Racecourse, Bendigo (supported by Visit Victoria) TICKETS

Wednesday 25 February – Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney TICKETS