Quiet as a Mouse is the recording project of Alex Moran, a London-born singer-songwriter who has been based in Brisbane, Australia since 2019. Moran’s life has been defined by movement, growing up and living across places like Leamington Spa, Stanthorpe, Warwick, Hobart, and Adelaide before settling on the other side of the world. He has been making music for nearly twenty years, and Quiet as a Mouse is the outlet he designed specifically to reflect his personality, honesty, and maturity as a songwriter, a place where genre is treated as a playground rather than a constraint. Drawing on alternative rock, emo, indie pop, and traces of alt-country, the project blends those textures into something that sounds connected and cohesive without ever being formulaic. Nostalgia is fine…but…, released May 29, 2026, is the sophomore album and arrives eight years after the debut. It is a collection of ten songs that Moran has described as presenting diverse aspects of rock while remaining unified as a whole, and the title says everything about where his head is at: nostalgia has value, but it can also hold you back.
Track by Track
1. Miss Melody
The lead single and the album’s opening statement, and it earns both roles. From the first notes there is a worn-in warmth to the guitars, a hazy familiarity that feels like a half-remembered tune drifting in from another room. The rhythm section keeps things grounded without ever feeling rigid, and Moran’s vocal delivery, gravelly and tender in equal measure, guides the whole thing with quiet authority. The track shifts seamlessly between tenderness and low-key intensity without overdwelling in either direction, and the emotional weight accumulates organically rather than being forced upfront. It sits in a fascinating stylistic space, full of echoes of past eras without ever feeling like imitation. It is melodic indie pop-rock at its best, and a strong statement of intent for the record that follows.
2. Cocaine Soul
One of Moran’s own personal favorites from the record, and it is easy to hear why. The track leans into the rawer, more abrasive side of the Quiet as a Mouse sound, with a punk and DIY energy that makes it one of the more immediate listens on the album. There is a recklessness implied in the title that the track delivers on, and Moran’s willingness to go there without hedging is exactly the kind of gutsy songwriting that makes this project worth following.
3. Peter Pan
Another track that Moran has singled out as a personal favorite, and it carries a different emotional weight from what surrounds it. The Peter Pan reference suggests someone who has struggled with growing up or moving on, and the track explores that tension with the kind of specificity that keeps the feeling from becoming generic. The arrangement sits comfortably in the album’s indie rock framework while leaving room for the lyric to do its work.
4. From…To
The elliptical title captures something the whole album is interested in: the space between where you were and where you are going, and how much of your identity lives in that gap. This is one of Moran’s stated favorites from the record, and it reflects the album’s central preoccupation with nostalgia and forward movement in a more direct way than most of the tracks around it. At just over two and a half minutes it is one of the shorter pieces on the record, but it does not waste a second.
5. 1999
The fourth of Moran’s personal favorites from the tracklist, and arguably the most evocative title on the album. A song called 1999 on a record about nostalgia carries a particular kind of weight, and the track delivers on the expectation. The production has a warmth that suits the subject matter, and Moran’s voice sits in exactly the right place in the mix, close enough to feel personal without being claustrophobic. It is a track that rewards attention.
6. Paracetamol
The title shifts the album into more uncomfortable territory. Paracetamol as a song title suggests something about managing pain, getting through the day, taking the edge off something that will not fully go away. It is a quietly striking choice and the track backs it up with a more subdued arrangement that gives the lyric room to land. One of the more emotionally textured pieces on the record.
7. The Man I Am
A track that feels like a reckoning of some kind. Given the album’s themes of nostalgia, identity, and the passage of time, a song called The Man I Am sits right at the heart of what Moran is working through across these ten tracks. The tone here is reflective rather than declarative, which is the right call, and the arrangement keeps the focus firmly on the lyric. It is the kind of song that takes on more meaning the more time you spend with the record around it.
8. Dolls Eyes
A striking image for a song title, and the track carries that slightly unsettled quality through its runtime. There is something in the Quiet as a Mouse sound that has always been willing to sit with discomfort rather than resolve it cleanly, and this track reflects that instinct clearly. The guitars have an edge to them here that contrasts with some of the warmer textures earlier on the album, and the shift in tone keeps the record from ever becoming too comfortable.
9. Comfort Food
A title that cuts right to the heart of what nostalgia actually is: the emotional equivalent of reaching for something familiar when things feel hard. The track has a warmth to it that the title earns, and it sits naturally near the end of a record that has been circling this exact idea from the beginning. Moran’s songwriting has a way of making the universal feel personal, and this is one of the better examples of that on the album.
10. White Picket Fence
The album closes with one of the most loaded images in the entire vocabulary of nostalgia and aspiration. A white picket fence is the shorthand for everything people tell themselves they are supposed to want, and closing a record called Nostalgia is fine…but… with that image is a deliberate and well-considered choice. The track does not spell out its meaning, which is exactly right. It leaves the listener with a question rather than an answer, and that lingering ambiguity is the most fitting way this album could possibly end.
Final Thoughts
Nostalgia is fine…but… is a record that knows exactly what it is trying to do and does it with real care and craft. Alex Moran has spent eight years between albums finding out what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, and the result is a sophomore record that feels genuinely earned. Ten songs that span the full range of indie rock without losing the thread, held together by a set of songwriting instincts that sound more refined and more confident than anything he has done before. This is the kind of album that rewards repeated listening, and the kind of artist that deserves your time.
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