Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Phins Up — Phil and The Blanks

Phil and The Blanks feel like the kind of band that exist purely because making serious music all the time would be incredibly boring. Even their own band description paints them as “a bunch of chancers chasing a pointless dream,” which honestly tells you almost everything you need to know about the energy they bring.

“PHINS UP” might be one of the funniest and most strangely charming songs we have heard in a while. Built around a modern love story and an oddly sincere tribute to the Redcliffe Dolphins rugby league team, the track feels like it should not work at all yet somehow completely does.

The hook especially carries this glossy early-2000s reggae-pop energy that weirdly recalls Mysterious Girl, while the playful storytelling and deliberately unserious tone bring back memories of Colt 45 era comedy rap and pub storytelling.

The funniest part is that the band themselves describe it as “reggae has probably never sounded so white,” and honestly, that self-awareness is exactly what makes the song work. Underneath all the silliness is a band that clearly understands hooks, personality, and how to make a track feel genuinely fun rather than forced.

There is also something very Australian about “PHINS UP.” The references to local rugby culture, the slightly awkward charm, the loose storytelling, the feeling that the entire song could soundtrack either a beach party or a drunken pub singalong after a Dolphins game — it all feels incredibly specific in the best way possible.

Fun 4 You — Charli Lucas

This is one of our favourite songs from this week’s picks. Charli Lucas feels like the kind of pop artist who understands that great songwriting is not always about saying the most complex thing possible, but about capturing emotions in a way that feels painfully familiar.

Between the storytelling, the composition, and the subtle emotional tension running underneath the production, “Fun 4 You” ends up feeling far heavier than its bright indie-pop exterior initially suggests.

Sonically, the song feels upbeat, catchy, and almost carefree at times, but underneath that sits the heavy ache of sudden heartbreak and emotional confusion. The entire track feels built around that strange phase after a breakup where people convince themselves they are moving on while quietly falling apart underneath it all.

Most importantly though, the song just feels incredibly well constructed. Charli Lucas clearly understands how to build emotional tension within pop songwriting without sacrificing replay value, and that balance is exactly what makes “Fun 4 You” so effective.

Trocadero — Ricky Neil Jr.

“TROCADERO” feels like the kind of indie-pop song that completely pulls you in through its energy before you even realise how emotionally heavy it actually is.

Sonically, the track leans heavily into dance-pop and disco-inspired textures, filled with movement, groove, and this glossy nightlife atmosphere that makes it incredibly easy to get lost inside. It is the kind of song that almost tricks you into dancing through emotional emptiness.

What makes the track so compelling though is the tension sitting underneath all that brightness.

Ricky Neil Jr. described the song as being about “how badly I want new stuff but how lonely I get when I realise the things that make me feel safe and loved aren’t there,” and that emotional contradiction becomes the entire heart of the track.

The excitement of wanting more, buying more, chasing comfort through material things — only to suddenly realise none of it actually fills the emotional space you were trying to escape from.

The result is a track that feels equally suited for a late-night dancefloor or a lonely walk home afterwards, which is probably exactly why it works so well.

Those Shoes You March In — Gigi.

We recently spoke about Public Figures and how their debut EP Figure It Out! felt like a band arriving with far more confidence and identity than most acts usually do. There was already a strong sense of tension, personality, and emotional instinct running through those songs, particularly in the way they balanced sharp punk energy with vulnerability.

What makes “Those Shoes You March In” so interesting then is hearing a completely different side of Gigi Argiro outside of that band environment.

While Public Figures thrive on urgency and confrontation, this debut solo release feels far more introspective and emotionally exposed. Rooted heavily in the 90s alternative rock and guitar-driven songwriting that shaped them growing up, the track carries a warmth and emotional openness that feels deeply personal.

Lyrically and emotionally, “Those Shoes You March In” feels centred around self-discovery, relationships, and the uncomfortable process of growing into yourself.

“Those Shoes You March In” feels like the beginning of an artist allowing people to see a side of themselves that perhaps did not fully fit within the framework of their other projects — and that honesty is exactly what makes the track resonate.

Invisible Man — The Beefs

There is something very distinctly Australian about the core idea behind “Invisible Man.” The song revolves around a prawn fisherman lurking around in the dark when he is not working, but underneath that specific imagery is a much broader reflection on people who live outside normal routines — nightshift workers, FIFO workers, and the kind of people who quietly keep things moving while the rest of the world sleeps.

What makes the track hit so well though is that The Beefs channel it through this classic rock energy that feels rugged, loose, and incredibly alive. The guitars throughout the track are fantastic, carrying that warm, driving sound that instantly makes you want to turn the volume up louder than you probably should.

There is also something cinematic about “Invisible Man.” The song genuinely feels like the soundtrack to somebody drifting through empty streets, truck stops, pubs, highways, and late-night worksites while everybody else is asleep.

More than anything though, this is just one of those songs built for long drives. Windows down, music loud, somewhere between exhaustion and freedom. The Beefs understand exactly how to capture that feeling, and that is what makes “Invisible Man” such an enjoyable listen.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

A lot of artists today jump from one band wagon to another depending on what is hot, just to seem like they care about things and get more followers along the way.

In a day and age where being seen and heard everywhere is what most musicians and bands are looking to get, there we have the Australian band Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice, the baby of frontman Dougal Shaw, who is not only standing up for what he believes in, but has shown that through actions again and again since the inception of the band in 2019.

Not too long ago in February 2026, all of their music was taken down from streaming platforms.

At a time where most artists are trying to get onto as many playlists as possible and constantly stay visible online, the move felt almost bizarre.

But the reasoning behind it was surprisingly simple. Shaw spoke about wanting to be more intentional with where the band’s music exists and what systems it supports. He talked about growing uncomfortable participating in platforms that reduce art into endlessly available content while artists themselves are expected to constantly feed algorithms just to survive.

Importantly, the decision was not framed as some dramatic moral statement. There was no “we are better than everyone else” energy around it. If anything, it felt more like somebody openly questioning the systems musicians have slowly accepted as normal over the last decade.

And the more you think about it, the harder it becomes to ignore how strange music culture has started to feel recently.

The music itself feels like a reaction to modern life

Part of what makes Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice so interesting in the middle of this whole conversation is that their music already sounds like it is reacting to the exact world that created AI music culture in the first place.

Their records are chaotic, funny, anxious, political and weirdly emotional all at once. Across their discography, the band jumps between post-punk, synth punk, art rock and new wave while constantly pulling apart modern Australian life in the process.

A lot of the band’s writing revolves around modern alienation, housing, capitalism, burnout, identity and the weird disconnect that comes from existing online all the time. There is frustration running through the music, but there is also humour and warmth sitting underneath it.

It never sounds like the band is trying to position themselves above everybody else or pretend they have everything figured out. If anything, the songs feel like people trying to make sense of the mess in real time.

That messiness is exactly what feels important now.

Because the more AI-generated music starts appearing online, the more noticeable it becomes when music actually sounds lived-in. AI can already imitate genres, structures and aesthetics pretty convincingly, but it still struggles to recreate the feeling of actual people bouncing off each other creatively. The strange chemistry that happens inside bands. The moments that probably should not work but somehow become the most memorable parts of a record.

Bands like Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice sound deeply personal because their music is full of tension, contradictions and unpredictability. Nothing about it feels designed purely for algorithms or passive listening.

Which is probably why their decision to pull their music from streaming platforms felt so connected to the art itself. The band has always sounded like they were questioning the systems surrounding modern life. Eventually that questioning moved beyond the lyrics and into real actions too.

Music discovery does not feel the same anymore

There was a time where finding a new band genuinely felt exciting. You would hear about artists through friends, zines, forums, community radio stations, opening acts at tiny gigs, or some badly recorded live video uploaded online years ago. Music discovery felt messy and personal.

People also listened differently, Albums were something you sat with properly. You learned tracklists, lyrics, artwork, weird transitions between songs, hidden details buried deep inside records. Sometimes albums took weeks or months to fully click, but that was part of the experience.

Now music often feels like it is designed to pass by as quickly as possible.

Streaming completely changed listening habits. Songs became shorter, hooks arrived quicker, and artists suddenly had to compete for attention every second. Instead of disappearing for two or three years to make a concept album, musicians are now expected to constantly release content just to remain visible.

Even the way people talk about music has changed, everything revolves around numbers now. Monthly listeners, streams, engagement, algorithm placement. The conversation around art increasingly feels tied to performance metrics rather than actual connection.

Music has become more accessible than ever before, yet somehow a lot of it feels less meaningful.

Album culture has not disappeared completely, but it definitely feels weaker than it once did. Fewer people seem to sit with records long enough to build relationships with them. Discovery feels less organic now, like music is being delivered to people rather than stumbled upon.

Then AI entered the conversation and pushed all of this even further.

But acting like AI is purely evil misses the point too

At the same time, reducing AI to some evil force destroying creativity feels far too simplistic. Music history is full of moments where new technology scared people. Synthesisers were criticised, Sampling was dismissed as stealing. Digital recording was blamed for ruining warmth and authenticity, but eventually artists found ways to use those tools creatively.

AI can absolutely become part of that evolution if it is used carefully.

For independent musicians especially, AI tools can remove barriers that previously made creating art far more difficult. Artists can use it to organise ideas, restore recordings, experiment with arrangements, create visuals, or speed up technical processes that would otherwise require money and resources they simply do not have.

The problem is not the technology itself, it is the culture surrounding it and more importantly how people and corporations are using it.

Right now most platforms reward speed, volume, and visibility over depth. AI is often being used to flood the internet with more disposable content rather than helping artists create more meaningful work. Instead of supporting creativity, it risks flattening music even further into background noise.

So where does music go from here?

That is what makes Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice removing their music from streaming platforms feel bigger than just one band making a personal choice.

Whether intentionally or not, it pushes back against this growing idea that music should always be instantly available, endlessly consumable, and constantly optimised for algorithms.

Maybe the answer is not rejecting technology entirely because realistically that is never going to happen. AI is here now and it will inevitably become part of music culture moving forward. But there is still a huge difference between using technology as a creative tool and allowing it to completely replace the personal side of art.

Because despite everything, people still crave that connection from music. You still see it when local scenes thrive, when genuinely great albums slowly build cult followings, or when songs become attached to specific moments in people’s lives for years afterward.

Maybe that is the thing worth protecting most. Not nostalgia for older ways of consuming music, but the idea that art should still feel connected to real people saying real things, rather than endless content generated to fill silence.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Raindrops — Headwreck

Headwreck feel like genuine stars in the making. The Brisbane-based nu-metalcore band have been quietly building a cult-like following over the last few years, and once you hear the music, it becomes pretty obvious why.

They understand something a lot of heavy bands forget: aggression alone is not enough. The songs still need movement, personality, and moments people actually want to come back to.

That balance is where Headwreck really thrive.

“Raindrops” is chaotic, explosive, and packed with energy, but underneath all the heaviness is a strong sense of groove and melody that stops the track from becoming one-dimensional. The band know exactly when to hit hard and when to pull things back into something more hook-driven.

The breakdowns throughout the song are some of the most satisfying we have heard from this lane in a while, but what really makes the track stick is the contrast between those heavier moments and the vocal harmonies layered throughout. Even the hook carries this huge melodic quality that gets trapped in your head almost immediately.

What makes Headwreck connect beyond just heavy music audiences is that they never let the music become overly self-serious. Even at their heaviest, there is still bounce, swagger, and fun inside the chaos.

If they keep refining this sound the way they have been, it genuinely feels like Headwreck are going to become one of the breakout heavy bands in Australia over the next few years.

Heartless — South Summit

South Summit have quietly become one of the most interesting bands coming out of Western Australia right now. What makes them stand out is how naturally they blend reggae, indie rock, hip hop, alternative, and pop influences into something that still feels cohesive and unmistakably theirs.

“Heartless,” the fourth single from their upcoming album Run It Back (dropping June 12), feels like another strong example of that versatility. The music video, filmed at the summit of Bluff Knoll — one of Western Australia’s highest mountains — perfectly matches the emotional openness running through the song itself.

“Heartless” works because of the tension at its centre.

Lyrically, the song leans heavily into emotional fallout, regret, distance, and the aftermath of a relationship slowly collapsing.

“I blame myself, but you already know”
“I gave my soul, but it still feels cold”

The lyrics carry the weight of heartbreak, but musically the song moves in a completely different direction. Instead of leaning into sadness sonically, South Summit build the track around uplifting melodies, groove-heavy production that almost feels danceable.

In a way, the track flips the traditional heartbreak formula on its head. It becomes less about emotional collapse and more about surviving it.

The chorus especially captures that emotional duality beautifully.

Interestingly, this was also the first song the band began working on for the upcoming album, and after hearing all the singles released so far, this still remains our favourite drop from the project.

Song for Steven — Sonic Reducer

Australia’s punk scene is ridiculous right now. There are so many great bands emerging across the country, and Sonic Reducer are definitely one of the ones we are most excited about at the moment.

Based out of Canberra, the band have been quietly building momentum through a string of strong singles and EP releases, and it already feels like they are moving toward something much bigger.

If you grew up listening to bands like Ramones or Sex Pistols, there is a very good chance Sonic Reducer will connect with you instantly.

Even though “Song for Steven” does not fully sound like a traditional punk track sonically, it still carries that same spirit underneath it all: looseness, emotional honesty, awkwardness, and youthful energy.

“You say you know what I’m on about
But I’m still trying to find what to say”

That line especially feels like the emotional core of the song. There is frustration in it, but also vulnerability — the feeling of not fully understanding yourself yet while everyone around you expects clarity.

“Don’t listen to your mother
Don’t spend your life trying to live it for another”

That line carries the classic punk spirit of individuality and freedom without ever sounding preachy.

They might not be a household name yet, but it genuinely feels like Sonic Reducer are becoming one of the most exciting punk bands emerging in Australia right now.

Too Late To Go Outside — kate moth

We recently discovered kate moth, a Sydney-based band, and we are very glad we did.

On their latest track, “Too Late To Go Outside,” they create a world that feels strangely immersive — like a rollercoaster moving in slow motion inside a dream.

The song feels hazy, intimate, and emotionally distant in a way that gets deeper the longer it plays. Even though there is movement underneath the instrumentation, everything still feels calm and weightless at the same time.

A huge part of that comes from Matt’s vocal performance. There is something incredibly soothing about the delivery throughout the track. Even when the lyrics deal with inner conflict, emotional exhaustion, and falling in and out of consciousness, the vocals somehow make the chaos feel comforting rather than overwhelming.

Lyrically, the song explores isolation, emotional paralysis, overthinking, and the feeling of wanting escape while remaining completely stuck.

It feels like the kind of song you put on alone late at night and suddenly find yourself completely absorbed in without realising it.

Higher Than Usual — Nancy and the Jam Fancys

The first time we heard Nancy and the Jam Fancys, one comparison immediately came to mind: Jim Morrison from The Doors, who is personally my favourite vocalist of all time.

Not because the band are trying to imitate The Doors sonically, but because Lewis Griffin carries a similar kind of unpredictability and charisma in his vocal delivery. There is that same loose, hypnotic energy where it feels like the performance could either completely fall apart or become transcendent at any second, and that tension is exactly what makes it compelling.

“Higher Than Usual” leans fully into that atmosphere.

From the opening line:

“You seem like a fine individual… shame I met you now you seem higher than usual”

the song immediately drops you into this hazy, psychedelic world filled with intoxication, late-night encounters, and blurred emotional states.

The video itself opens with a drug addict taking a hit, setting the tone for what the track is really exploring — not just substance use, but altered states in general. The feeling of people drifting through life disconnected, detached, impulsive, and emotionally elsewhere.

The last major release from the band was their album Swan Songs back in January 2025, and honestly, this track feels like the beginning of a new chapter creatively. There is something sharper, more confident, and more fully realised about the direction they are moving toward here.

If this is where Nancy and the Jam Fancys are heading next, we are very interested to hear what comes after.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag Sound Under on Instagram or send us a DM.

There’s a line from AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll) that has probably followed every touring band around the world for the last fifty years:

“If you think it’s easy doing one night stands, try playing in a rock ’n’ roll band.”

What’s interesting about that lyric is how little it has aged. If anything, it feels even more relevant now than it did in 1975.

The technology around music has changed completely, the ways artists release songs have evolved, and audiences consume music in fundamentally different ways, yet the core reality behind that line still remains untouched. Building a life around music is difficult, exhausting, financially unstable, and emotionally demanding in ways most people outside of it rarely fully see.

The strange thing about the current moment is that music exists in this constant contradiction. On one side, artists have more tools available to them than ever before. Someone can upload a song from their bedroom in Adelaide, Melbourne, or Perth and potentially have listeners from completely different parts of the world hearing it within hours.

There are fewer gatekeepers than there once were, and discovery itself has become far more democratic than the industry structures that existed twenty or thirty years ago.

At the same time though, actually sustaining a long-term career in music feels increasingly difficult, especially for artists who are trying to build something with depth and identity rather than simply reacting to trends.

This tension feels particularly visible in Australia right now. From the outside, the country still appears to have a thriving live music culture. Tours happen constantly, festivals continue to sell out, and there is never really a shortage of new artists emerging from different scenes around the country.

But underneath all of that, there has also been a growing sense of exhaustion across the industry over the last few years. Touring costs continue rising, smaller venues are disappearing, audiences are more fragmented than they once were, and artists are increasingly expected to function not only as musicians, but also as marketers, content creators, strategists, editors, and personalities online.

For bands especially, the pressure feels uniquely heavy because maintaining a band has always required a level of commitment that goes beyond the music itself.

It is multiple people trying to keep momentum moving in the same direction while balancing completely different personal lives, financial realities, emotional states, and long-term priorities. Even under ideal circumstances, that is difficult to sustain over a long enough period of time.

Which is partly why the indefinite hiatus of Bad//Dreems feels larger than simply another band deciding to step away for a while.

A Band That Always Felt Grounded in Something Real

Bad//Dreems were never just another band filling out festival lineups. Over the last decade, they became one of the defining voices in modern Australian pub rock, not because they reinvented the genre completely, but because they understood what made it resonate in the first place.

Their music always felt grounded in something recognisable. There was humour in it, frustration in it, loneliness in it, and an understanding of suburban Australian life that never felt exaggerated or performative.

That honesty is what made albums like Dogs At Bay, Gutful, and HOO HA! connect with so many people over the years.

The band understood how to capture a very particular emotional texture within Australian life — the boredom, the distance, the dark humour people use to mask disappointment, and the feeling of wanting more while simultaneously feeling stuck in place. But underneath that was often something uglier as well: violence, repression, toxic masculinity, racism, generational frustration, and the emotional damage sitting quietly beneath a lot of Australian suburbia. Even at their loudest, there was always vulnerability underneath the surface of their music.

What made Bad//Dreems particularly important within the Australian landscape was that their songs were not trying to mythologise themselves into something larger than life. They felt closer to conversations overheard outside pubs at closing time, long drives through outer suburbs, or the strange emotional emptiness that can exist even inside loud rooms full of people.

That ability to capture ordinary life without romanticising or mocking it is much harder than it sounds, and it is also part of why the band’s music has aged so well.

Ultra Dundee Feels Like the End of a Circle

Listening to Ultra Dundee now, especially with the knowledge of the hiatus sitting quietly in the background, the emotional weight of the record becomes even more noticeable.

It almost feels like a circle being completed.

Before this album, Dogs At Bay probably felt like the Bad//Dreems record most deeply tied to Adelaide, not just geographically, but emotionally as well.

There was something about that album that captured the feeling of outer suburbs, pub carparks, dead-end jobs, strange local characters, and the kind of restless boredom that quietly sits underneath a lot of Australian life. More than anything, it introduced the emotional world the band would continue returning to over the next 15 years.

Now with Ultra Dundee, the band somehow returns to that same emotional landscape, except this time it feels older, stranger, heavier, and more reflective. There’s still humour throughout the album, still absurdity, still the surreal Australian imagery Bad//Dreems have always been brilliant at writing, but underneath it all there’s also a sense of reckoning with time, identity, memory, mortality, and place.

Even the opening track, “Slaughterhouse ’85”, immediately feels like someone revisiting fragments of their past while trying to understand what any of it actually meant. The song moves through Adelaide imagery almost like memories flashing past a car window — the Q.E.H., Croatian clubs, late-night drives, local fuel stations, knife fights, old ghosts — but none of it feels nostalgic in the traditional sense.

It feels more like someone emotionally tracing the map of where they came from while quietly realising how much time has already disappeared.

Throughout Ultra Dundee, people seem spiritually displaced from themselves, from each other, and sometimes even from the country surrounding them. Characters drift through deserts, pubs, highways, shadowlands, religious hallucinations, collapsing relationships, and strange visions of Australia that feel simultaneously grounded and mythological.

“Shadowland” might be one of the clearest examples of this thread running through the album. The repeated line, “I wake up every morning and forget myself / And the man in the mirror looks like someone else,” feels less like a personal confession and more like the emotional centre of the entire record. The album constantly returns to questions of identity, disconnection, and the uneasy feeling of no longer fully recognising the world around you.

What makes the album compelling is that Bad//Dreems never try to over-explain any of this. The songs feel intentionally fragmented at times, almost dreamlike in the way imagery appears and disappears. Characters emerge briefly before dissolving again. Places feel symbolic as much as physical. Religious references sit beside UFO sightings, highways, pubs, violence, death, and desert landscapes in ways that make Australia itself feel almost mythological and haunted.

That has always been one of Bad//Dreems’ greatest strengths as writers.

Their music rarely presents Australia in simplistic terms. There’s always beauty sitting beside ugliness, humour sitting beside violence, spirituality sitting beside emptiness. Their version of Australia feels deeply human because it allows contradictions to exist naturally rather than forcing neat conclusions.

Knowing the hiatus sits ahead of this album inevitably changes how certain lyrics and themes are interpreted. Songs about time, endings, memory, isolation, and transformation begin carrying extra emotional weight even if they were never written explicitly about the band itself.

The closing track “Afterlife” in particular almost feels like a quiet acceptance of change rather than a dramatic farewell.

What makes Ultra Dundee such a strong final statement (if it does end up becoming that) is that it feels like a band fully settling into themselves creatively and emotionally, trusting atmosphere and honesty more than anything else.

Which, in a strange way, is probably what made Bad//Dreems important in the first place.

The Bigger Problem Facing Australian Music

The difficult reality is that longevity itself has become harder to sustain. Many artists today are operating inside systems where the emotional, financial, and physical demands of maintaining a creative career continue growing while the actual rewards become increasingly unstable.

Touring, which was once one of the few reliable ways for artists to survive financially, has become significantly more expensive, while streaming rarely provides enough meaningful income unless artists reach enormous scale.

At the same time, audiences are consuming more music than ever before, but often in ways that encourage speed rather than deep engagement. Songs move quickly through timelines, playlists refresh constantly, and attention itself has become fragmented across platforms. Within that environment, building something slowly and organically becomes much harder, even for genuinely great artists.

For bands, these pressures often become even more intense because sustaining a group over a long period requires far more than simply continuing to write good songs.

That reality rarely gets discussed properly when conversations around music become overly focused on numbers, visibility, and momentum.

Because the truth is that many important artists are barely surviving long before audiences realise there is even a problem.

What Needs to Change?

This is why conversations around supporting music need to move beyond simply celebrating artists once they are already struggling or disappearing.

If independent music scenes are going to survive long-term, then the ecosystems around artists also need to become sustainable. Smaller venues matter because they give artists places to develop before larger audiences arrive. Independent media matters because scenes cannot survive purely through algorithms.

Audiences showing up consistently matters because music cultures are built through communities, not passive consumption.

There also needs to be a wider cultural shift in how audiences understand success within music. Not every artist is going to become globally massive, and honestly, that should not be the expectation in the first place.

Some of the most important bands within any country’s music culture are the ones that slowly build dedicated communities over years rather than exploding overnight.

But for that kind of artistic growth to survive, there needs to be enough structural support around it to make longevity possible.

Australia is still producing incredible bands. That has never really been the problem. The deeper issue is whether the structures surrounding artists actually allow them to keep creating long enough to fully evolve.

And maybe that is the uncomfortable feeling sitting underneath the hiatus of Bad//Dreems.

Not that a great band reached the end of its creative abilities, but that even for respected, culturally important artists, surviving within the modern music industry can slowly become harder than making the music itself.

But underneath all of that is one of the most influential and layered music scenes in the world.

This is a country that gave the world stadium rock giants, globally influential alternative bands, one of the oldest continuing musical cultures on Earth, and underground scenes that still survive through community radio, DIY venues, and relentless touring.

From Indigenous musical traditions and Australian punk history to psychedelic rock, Triple J, and pub culture, these stories reveal why Australian music has had a much bigger global impact than many people realise.

Here are 25 wild Australian music facts you probably didn’t know.

1) Indigenous Australian music traditions are part of one of the world’s oldest continuing cultures

Long before Australia had recording studios, festivals, or rock bands, Indigenous communities across the continent had already developed deeply spiritual musical traditions tied to storytelling, ceremony, dance, and connection to Country.

These traditions stretch back tens of thousands of years and remain central to Indigenous cultural life today.

2) AC/DC was formed in Sydney by two Scottish brothers

One of the biggest rock bands in history began after Malcolm and Angus Young migrated from Scotland to Australia with their family.

The band was formed in Sydney in 1973, and the name “AC/DC” famously came from the label on their sister’s sewing machine.

3) Australia developed one of the most distinctive pub rock circuits in the world

Before streaming and social media discovery, Australian bands survived by touring constantly through pubs and small venues.

That touring culture became a defining part of Australian music identity throughout the 70s and 80s, forcing artists to become incredible live performers or disappear quickly.

4) Silverchair became international stars while still in school

The members of Silverchair were teenagers from Newcastle when they entered a national demo competition under the name Innocent Criminals.

Soon after winning, their single “Tomorrow” exploded internationally and turned them into one of Australia’s biggest rock exports almost overnight.

5) Triple J helped shape generations of Australian music fans

For decades, Triple J has played a major role in introducing Australian listeners to alternative, independent, and emerging artists.

Its annual Hottest 100 countdown eventually became one of the country’s biggest music traditions.

6) The Bee Gees built much of their early career in Australia

Although many people associate the Bee Gees with the UK and later American disco culture, the brothers spent important formative years in Queensland after moving there as children during the late 1950s.

7) Australia’s live music culture became deeply tied to touring

Because of the country’s geography and relative isolation, touring has always been a major part of Australian music culture.

For many artists, live performance became essential not just creatively, but financially and culturally.

8) Tame Impala started largely as a bedroom recording project

Before becoming one of the defining names in modern psychedelic music, Kevin Parker was recording much of Tame Impala’s early material alone in Perth.

The project slowly evolved from a personal experimental outlet into a global phenomenon.

9) The Saints released one of punk’s most important early records

The Saints released “(I’m) Stranded” in 1976, before many legendary UK punk bands had even released their debut singles.

Today, the song is widely considered one of the foundational records of punk music.

10) Community radio still plays a huge role in Australian music discovery

Even in the streaming era, stations like PBS FM and RRR continue helping independent Australian artists reach new audiences.

For many local scenes, community radio still matters enormously.

11) INXS sold over 70 million records worldwide

What started as a Sydney pub band eventually became one of Australia’s biggest global success stories.

Throughout the 80s and early 90s, INXS became one of the world’s most recognisable rock bands.

12) Australian festivals helped shape entire generations of music fans

Festivals like Big Day Out became far more than concert events.

For many people, they were introductions to entirely new genres, scenes, subcultures, and artists.

13) Australia’s geographic isolation helped many artists develop unique sounds

Because Australia sits relatively far from major global music hubs, many artists ended up building strong local identities before international audiences discovered them.

That isolation often encouraged experimentation instead of trend-chasing.

14) Nick Cave emerged from Melbourne’s chaotic post-punk underground

Before becoming one of modern music’s most respected songwriters, Nick Cave performed with The Birthday Party, a group known for intense and unpredictable live performances.

15) Australia became one of modern psych-rock’s biggest creative hubs

From Tame Impala to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Australian artists played a major role in the global revival of psychedelic and experimental rock throughout the 2010s.

16) Gotye created one of the defining songs of the 2010s

“Somebody That I Used To Know” became a global phenomenon despite sounding very different from most mainstream pop songs at the time.

Its stripped-back production and emotional storytelling helped it stand out worldwide.

17) Australia’s heavy music scenes run far deeper than many people realise

Across cities like Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, independent hardcore, punk, metal, and alternative scenes continue thriving through DIY venues, local promoters, and touring communities.

A huge part of that ecosystem still exists outside mainstream visibility.

18) Amyl and the Sniffers rose from pub shows to global stages

Their rise reflects a classic Australian pathway: relentless touring, chaotic live performances, and building momentum through word of mouth long before mainstream recognition arrived.

19) Australian radio censorship often made controversial songs even bigger

Throughout different periods of Australian music history, songs dealing with politics, explicit themes, or social controversy were sometimes restricted from radio play.

In many cases, the attention only made audiences more curious.

20) Melbourne is often considered Australia’s live music capital

The city has long been associated with independent venues, underground scenes, record stores, and strong support for live music culture.

For many Australian artists, Melbourne became a key creative hub.

21) Sia wrote massive global hits before becoming a solo superstar

Before dominating charts under her own name, Sia had already written major songs for artists including Rihanna, Beyoncé, and David Guetta.

22) Australian hip-hop took years to fully embrace local identity

For a long time, Australian hip-hop artists were criticised for sounding “too American.”

Over time, many artists stopped imitating American accents and instead embraced their own local stories, voices, and experiences — helping reshape the culture completely.

23) Many Australian independent artists still operate almost entirely DIY

A huge portion of Australia’s underground music ecosystem still survives through self-funded tours, independent merch, local communities, and artists balancing music alongside everyday jobs.

That DIY mentality remains central to Australian music culture.

24) King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released five albums in a single year

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released five albums in a single year—and they’ve done it twice (2017 and 2022).

Most artists struggle to finish one.

25) Australian music has always been far bigger than its stereotypes

For decades, global audiences often reduced Australian music to only a handful of mainstream acts.

But underneath that surface exists a massive ecosystem shaped by Indigenous storytelling, punk scenes, immigrant influences, experimental music, community radio, alternative culture, and generations of artists constantly redefining what Australian music can sound like.

And honestly, this barely scratches the surface.

Australia’s underground scenes have continued evolving far beyond the country’s mainstream exports — something we explored further in our deep dive into The History of Australian Music.

Joy is often the last thing people believe they deserve when going through the darkest phase of their life. But that search for joy is exactly what led Sam Hales from The Jungle Giants to create their fifth album Experiencing Feelings of Joy.

Behind the colourful production and euphoric indie-pop moments sits an album born out of emotional collapse, heartbreak, and creative paralysis. Hales had not only lost someone deeply important in his life, but also the person he had been creating music alongside for years.

For an artist, losing both emotional connection and creative direction at the same time can feel like losing your entire identity. Understandably, that period pushed him into one of the darkest mental spaces of his life.

What eventually gave him a glimpse of light was stumbling onto The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron — a book centred around reconnecting with creativity and rebuilding your relationship with yourself through art.

In many ways, Experiencing Feelings of Joy feels like Hales creating his own version of that process in musical form. The album almost plays like a self-help book disguised as an indie-pop record, documenting someone slowly learning how to feel alive again through creating.

What makes this even more interesting is that you would never immediately guess the emotional state Hales was in when first listening to the album. Sonically, the record opens with warmth, movement, and an almost celebratory energy. Instead of drowning in sadness, Hales chooses to fight through it with colour, rhythm, dancing, and human connection.

That emotional contradiction is captured perfectly on the opening track, which is dedicated to Hales’ mother and already feels destined to become one of the band’s defining songs. Beneath its infectious energy sits a deeply personal tribute to unconditional love, resilience, and the people who keep us grounded when life begins to collapse around us.

When Hales sings:

“Mumma did you know your love is kinda punk
Ain’t no man was stoppin’ you from raisin’ me all on your own”

it becomes clear that this album is not simply about escaping darkness, but about finding the people, memories, and emotions that help you survive it. Even the repeated refrain — “Will you tell me how it feels baby?” — feels less like a hook written for a crowd, and more like someone desperately trying to reconnect with emotion itself.

For perhaps the first time in a Jungle Giants record, Sam Hales feels completely exposed as a songwriter. And that vulnerability is exactly what makes Experiencing Feelings of Joy their most human album yet.

The Search for Joy

What makes Experiencing Feelings of Joy so emotionally interesting is that the album never sounds like it was written from a place of complete healing. Instead, it feels like Sam Hales documenting the process of trying to get there in real time.

Across the album, joy is not presented as a permanent emotional state or some perfect ending waiting at the finish line. It feels more like a conscious decision to keep moving, keep loving, keep dancing, and keep creating even when parts of your life are collapsing underneath you. That tension between emotional pain and sonic euphoria becomes the defining heartbeat of the record.

And sonically, the album fully commits to that idea.

The first four tracks are incredibly upbeat, colourful, and alive. The production constantly pushes towards movement, warmth, rhythm, and connection. Even when the lyrics are dealing with heartbreak, loneliness, uncertainty, or emotional confusion, the compositions themselves almost refuse to stay emotionally stagnant. The music wants to move forward. It wants to breathe, and dance its way through the darkness rather than sit still inside it.

That contrast becomes one of the album’s strongest qualities. Songs about longing, breakups, emotional distance, and vulnerability are wrapped inside some of the brightest and most accessible compositions The Jungle Giants have ever created.

The upbeat nature of the album doesn’t exist to hide the pain. It probably exists because of the pain.

There’s a feeling throughout the project that Sam Hales is using music itself as a way to reconnect with life again. Whether it’s love, friendship, physical touch, community, romance, dancing, or simply being present in a moment, the album constantly searches for emotional experiences that make existence feel meaningful again.

Around the middle of the record, the emotional cracks begin to show more openly. Tracks become slightly more introspective, more reflective, and more emotionally exposed, but the album never fully loses its warmth.

That’s what makes the sequencing of the album so effective. The joy never feels naive, and the sadness never completely consumes the record. Instead, both emotions constantly coexist beside each other.

By the time the album reaches World’s Getting Smaller, the emotional walls fully come down.

The production becomes more stripped back, more spacious, and far more vulnerable than anything that came before it. After an album filled with movement and colour, the closing track almost feels like the moment after the party ends and someone is finally left alone with their thoughts.

It’s easily the most emotionally exposed moment on the record, and perhaps the clearest glimpse into the emotional state Hales was navigating while creating this project.

What makes the ending particularly powerful is that the album never fully resolves its emotions. It doesn’t pretend heartbreak disappears. It doesn’t offer some grand conclusion about healing.

Instead, Experiencing Feelings of Joy understands something far more human: sometimes healing simply means finding enough reasons to keep feeling things again. And that’s exactly what this album does.

Sound Under Top 3 Picks

1) Tell Me How It Feels

There could not have been a more perfect opener for Experiencing Feelings of Joy. In many ways, Tell Me How It Feelsacts as the emotional thesis of the entire album. It captures everything the record is trying to say — love, community, movement, vulnerability, emotional survival, and the search for connection during moments where life feels emotionally overwhelming.

At the same time, it also feels destined to become one of the biggest songs in The Jungle Giants catalogue.

What makes the track so powerful is the contrast at the centre of it. Sonically, the composition is bright, euphoric, danceable, and full of life. But underneath that energy sits someone desperately trying to reconnect with emotion, purpose, and the people around them. That emotional bait-and-switch becomes one of the defining characteristics of the entire album, and this track introduces it perfectly.

The production constantly moves forward with warmth and momentum, while Sam Hales delivers some of the most emotionally open writing of his career.

The emotional core of the song ultimately comes back to love — not just romantic love, but the love of family, home, friendship, memory, and the people that shape who we become. Lines directed towards his mother become some of the most powerful moments on the entire album, grounding the song in something deeply personal rather than purely euphoric.

2) All The Time In The World

At just over five minutes long, All The Time In The World is the longest track on the album — something that almost feels rebellious in an era where attention spans are shrinking and songs are increasingly designed for short-form consumption. But rather than overstaying its welcome, the track slowly pulls you deeper into its emotional warmth with every passing minute.

This is easily some of the finest songwriting on the entire project.

What immediately stands out is just how effortlessly addictive the song is. The hook is arguably the strongest on the album, and one of the reasons the record works so well as a listening experience overall is because of how naturally these songs embed themselves into your head.

There’s a warmth and repetition to many of the melodies that almost feels comforting rather than commercial. The album understands the power of earworms, but it uses them emotionally instead of mechanically.

Sonically, the track fully embraces the euphoric and romantic side of Experiencing Feelings of Joy. The composition feels weightless, patient, and deeply sincere.

That’s what makes the writing feel so effective.

The emotional core of the track is beautifully captured in the chorus:

“We got all the time in the world
And you know you’re my favourite girl
They say love comes, let it unfurl”

There’s something incredibly human about the simplicity of those lines. No overcomplicated metaphors, or emotional games. Just someone trying to hold onto a feeling before life changes again.

3) World’s Getting Smaller

If Tell Me How It Feels represents the emotional heartbeat of the album, then World’s Getting Smaller feels like the emotional aftermath.

This is Sam Hales at his most vulnerable and emotionally exposed. After an album filled with movement, colour, groove, and euphoric compositions, the closing track strips almost everything back. The production becomes quieter, more spacious, and far more intimate, allowing the emotional weight of the writing to sit completely in the foreground.

And that restraint is exactly what makes the song so powerful.

There’s a feeling throughout the track of someone looking back at one of the hardest periods of their life with a clearer perspective. Not necessarily healed, but emotionally aware enough to finally sit with the pain instead of trying to outrun it. Unlike many of the earlier songs on the album that use rhythm and energy as emotional survival mechanisms, World’s Getting Smaller feels like the moment where all distractions disappear and only honesty remains.

And throughout the track, Hales captures a feeling that many people experience after heartbreak — the strange contradiction of living in a world that feels increasingly connected while emotionally feeling further away from someone than ever before.

“If the world that we’re living in is getting smaller
Why do you feel so far away?”

That hook alone carries the emotional weight of the entire song.

What makes the ending of the album especially beautiful is that despite all the heartbreak and emotional distance being described, there’s still love present inside the writing. Even in loss, Hales never fully turns cynical. If anything, the pain exists because the love itself was real.

And perhaps that’s the final message of Experiencing Feelings of Joy.

By ending the album in such a stripped-back and emotionally vulnerable way, The Jungle Giants leave listeners with the clearest glimpse into who Sam Hales really was while making this record — someone trying to rediscover joy while still carrying the weight of everything he had lost.

Very few albums manage to sound this joyful while carrying this much emotional weight underneath them. That’s what makes Experiencing Feelings of Joy such a special record.

At its core, this is not an album about someone who has fully healed or figured life out. It’s an album about someone learning how to survive again through music, movement, love, vulnerability, and creation itself. Sam Hales takes heartbreak, creative paralysis, loneliness, and emotional exhaustion, and somehow transforms those feelings into some of the warmest and most life-affirming songs The Jungle Giants have ever made.

What makes the album resonate so deeply is that it never pretends pain magically disappears. Even in its most euphoric moments, there’s still sadness living underneath the surface. But rather than allowing that darkness to consume the record, Hales chooses to dance through it, sing through it, and create through it. And in many ways, that feels like the entire message of the album itself.

By the time World’s Getting Smaller closes the record, it becomes clear that Experiencing Feelings of Joy is less about reaching happiness, and more about rediscovering the ability to feel things again after emotionally losing yourself for a period of time.

This might end up being one of the strongest albums released in 2026, and certainly one of the most emotionally honest records in The Jungle Giants’ catalogue. At some point, we’d love to sit down with Sam Hales for a deeper conversation around this project, because this album genuinely feels like it still has layers left to unpack beneath the surface.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Reruns — The Colliflowers

The Colliflowers have been sitting on our playlist for a while now, and one thing becomes obvious very quickly when you spend time with their music: they understand how to make genuinely fun, catchy pop-rock without sounding manufactured. There is an ease to their songwriting that makes the songs feel special.

Across their growing catalogue, there are plenty of tracks that hit that sweet spot, but for us, none land quite like “Reruns.”

This feels like the moment where everything fully clicks into place.

From the opening moments, the song carries a sense of movement that never lets up. The guitars are massive, the rhythm section keeps everything bouncing forward, and the vocal performance feels larger than life in the exact way a song like this needs. There is no formula for predicting what becomes a breakout track, but “Reruns” genuinely feels like it could become the band’s biggest song yet.

A huge reason for that is the guitar work. Nelson’s riff throughout the track is ridiculously addictive — the kind of riff that instantly locks itself into your brain after one listen. It gives the song its pulse, but also its personality.

Then comes the hook.

“ Oh my god / I’m barely getting started she’s rolling thunder ”

It is the kind of chorus built for movement. Windows down, summer drives, packed rooms shouting it back at the stage — the whole song feels designed for those moments. Even lyrically, there is something nostalgic and cinematic running underneath it all.

If you are looking for a song to inject some energy into your week, start here.

First Day Of The Rest Of My Life — Damon Mudge

A friend recently recommended Damon Mudge to us, and within one listen it became obvious why his music connects so quickly.

The Naarm-based piano rocker has a songwriting style that feels timeless without sounding dated. There is a warmth, theatricality, and melodic instinct to his music that instantly brings to mind artists like Elton John, but filtered through a modern Australian lens.

The track we have picked here, “First Day Of The Rest Of My Life,” comes from his debut album Country Living City Benefits — a project that deserves to be heard front to back. While the whole record carries strong songwriting throughout, this was the song we kept returning to the most.

A huge reason for that is the hook. It lands almost immediately and somehow manages to stay with you before the song has even finished. The groove is smooth, energetic, and full of movement, while the piano work gives the track its emotional core.

Then there are the drums.

As the song progresses, especially during the second half, the percussion begins opening the track up in a way that makes everything feel more alive. It is the kind of arrangement that feels built for a live room, where every section can breathe and expand naturally.

More than anything, this song feels joyful. There is a sense of momentum running through it that makes you want to move with it rather than simply listen from a distance.

Damon Mudge feels like one of those artists whose music is going to hit even harder live, and after hearing this record, we are already looking forward to seeing these songs in that setting.

If this track connects with you, spend time with the full album. There is a lot to discover inside it.

Heatin Park — DMA’S

At this point, DMA’S barely need an introduction. Over the last decade, the Sydney trio have become one of Australia’s biggest alternative exports, building a sound that sits somewhere between Britpop nostalgia, indie rock emotion, and massive stadium-ready songwriting.

What has always made DMA’S interesting is that even at their biggest, there is still something emotionally raw underneath the scale of the music. Their songs often feel huge, but never empty.

“Heatin Park” continues that perfectly.

The track has already been getting a lot of love online, and it is easy to understand why. Fans have been calling it one of the band’s strongest recent singles, especially because it feels like a return to the emotional urgency and melodic immediacy that made so many people connect with DMA’S in the first place.

From the opening moments, “Heatin Park” carries this restless emotional pull. The guitars feel expansive, the rhythm keeps everything moving forward, and Tommy O’Dell’s vocal sits right in the centre of the song with that familiar combination of vulnerability and force that DMA’S have built their career on.

But what really makes “Heatin Park” land is the feeling underneath it all. There is tension in the songwriting, but also warmth. The chorus feels built for live shows — one of those DMA’S moments where thousands of people could easily end up screaming the same lines back together.

Magic Man — The Gnomes

You do not come across many modern bands that genuinely transport you back to the spirit of the 60s in a believable way, but that is exactly what The Gnomes manage to do. And not just musically either. The whole world around the band — the visuals, the costumes, the performances, the attitude, feels fully committed to the era they are pulling from.

That is what separates them from simple nostalgia acts.

Yes, there are plenty of bands today inspired by 60s rock and roll, but most stop at the sound. The Gnomes go further than that. They understand the theatricality, charm, looseness, and personality that made bands from that era feel larger than life in the first place.

And “Magic Man” captures that perfectly.

The Frankston-based band channel elements of groups like The Kinks and The Beach Boys, though probably leaning more toward the storytelling eccentricity and garage-rock energy of The Kinks than the lush harmonies of The Beach Boys. There is a playful weirdness running through the song that feels very 60s British Invasion, especially in the way the lyrics sketch out this strange, slippery character drifting through life without consequence.

Musically, everything here just works. The guitars have that warm vintage bounce, the rhythm section keeps things moving effortlessly, and the whole track carries the kind of analog charm that makes you want to throw it on while driving with the windows down.

But what we love most about The Gnomes is that they still believe in the idea of the “band” properly. In an era obsessed with singles, trends, and quick moments, they feel interested in building worlds and bodies of work instead. There is a reason the golden era of rock and roll produced so many timeless records, and part of that came from artists thinking beyond one song at a time.

If you are someone who still loves proper rock and roll, there is a very good chance this band is going to connect with you instantly.

For the First Time — Le Shiv

Le Shiv still feel massively underrated for how complete they already are as a band. Sonically, visually, and aesthetically, everything about them feels intentional. They understand atmosphere, they understand image, and more importantly, they understand how to take older influences and reshape them into something that still feels fresh within today’s alternative music landscape.

“For the First Time” feels dark, cinematic, and emotionally explosive without becoming overly dramatic.

Lyrically, the song revolves around emotional manipulation, toxicity, and finally reaching a breaking point where clarity begins to cut through the chaos.

“Everything you talk / Seems to make me feel afraid…”

There is anger throughout the track, but more than anger, there is liberation.

What makes the track hit harder is how naturally the band build that emotional release into the music itself. The instrumentation keeps expanding as the song progresses.

Le Shiv are one of those bands that feel like they should already be much bigger than they are. The songwriting is there, the visual identity is there, and the sound already feels fully realised.

And if they continue refining this lane, it probably will not stay underground forever.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on instagram or send it through our DM.

There aren’t that many bands sounding truly unique and interesting right now, especially in a scene where a lot of bands are starting to blur into each other. But nightlight are taking influences like many others and turning them into something that genuinely feels like their own.

Even when the Melbourne band first started as a duo, there was already a very clear identity forming around the project. Not just sonically, but visually and emotionally too.

Their music always carried this mix of chaos, confidence, drama and pop sensibility that made them stand out from a lot of alternative bands trying to occupy similar spaces.

But with PARALLEL//LINES VOL. 1, it feels like that vision has become much clearer.

Since becoming a trio in 2024, the band feel far more settled into who they are. The songs feel bigger, the transitions feel more intentional, and there’s a confidence running through the EP that makes it feel less like experimentation and more like nightlight fully understanding their strengths.

The band describe themselves as “pop music for alternative people,” and honestly, that probably explains their sound and the EP better than any genre label could.

Across these four tracks, nightlight move through heavy guitars, electronic textures, breakdowns, huge choruses and hyperactive production choices. Even though there’s a lot happening, everything still feels connected to the same emotional world.

And the world they are building here feels loud, dramatic, messy and a little dangerous in the best possible way.

This is the kind of EP that will make you dance, scream, mosh, and probably break something at the same time. And although nightlight’s sound has always been interesting and unique, it genuinely feels like the release of their EP what if i’m the devil? and the addition of Jordan on drums helped push the band into another gear creatively.

Performance, Control & Emotional Chaos

One of the most interesting things about the EP is how much it revolves around performance and control.

A lot of the lyrics across the project play with exaggerated personalities, manipulation, ego and obsession. The people inside these songs are constantly pulling others closer while also creating distance at the same time. There’s attraction, tension, confidence, insecurity and emotional games all happening together.

That’s what makes the EP work so well. nightlight understand how theatrical this world is, and instead of hiding that, they lean into it completely.

There are moments across the project that almost feel larger than life, but the band always keep enough self-awareness in the writing that it never becomes exhausting.

Even the way the songs move feels connected to that energy.

The hooks often feel seductive before suddenly becoming aggressive. Certain moments feel playful one second and chaotic the next. There’s this constant push and pull throughout the EP that keeps everything moving in an interesting and engaging way.

The music feels heavy enough for hardcore and alternative crowds, but still melodic and accessible enough for almost anyone to get pulled into it after a few listens.

That balance is difficult to get right, especially for bands mixing this many influences together, but nightlight make it feel surprisingly natural.

The Sound of the EP

The opening track VOL. 1 does a really good job introducing the EP’s world before things fully open up. It feels less like a standalone song and more like the beginning of a longer experience.

By the time the second half of the track expands and transitions into DRAMA//DRAMA, the tone of the project already feels fully established.

From there, the EP keeps building momentum.

What stands out most throughout the project is how controlled the chaos feels. There’s a lot happening sonically across these songs, but the band never lose sight of structure or melody. The drums add a huge sense of movement throughout the EP, especially during the heavier moments, while the hooks still remain central to almost every track.

That’s probably what makes the project so replayable.

Underneath all the distortion, attitude and energy are songs that are genuinely catchy. Not catchy in a forced commercial way, but in the sense that certain hooks, melodies and moments naturally stay with you after the EP finishes.

The production also deserves credit for understanding when to let songs breathe. Even during the loudest sections, things rarely feel overcrowded. Every element feels like it exists to push the atmosphere of the EP further rather than simply making things heavier for the sake of it.

And because of that, the whole project feels immersive rather than overwhelming.

Final Thoughts

What makes PARALLEL//LINES VOL. 1 exciting is not just that nightlight are making good songs. It’s that the band already feel like they have a strong understanding of the kind of world they want to create around their music.

The EP feels dramatic, chaotic, confident and emotionally messy, but all of those things feel intentional and packaged in a way that people across different genres and age groups can still connect with after the first listen.

And if this is only the beginning of the PARALLEL//LINES series, it feels like nightlight still have a lot more to show.

Australia’s music story is often reduced to a shortlist of exports: AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, INXS, Tame Impala, Sia. Big names, real achievements, global reach, but they only tell part of the story.

The fuller picture is messier, richer and far more revealing. It begins long before federation, before charts and record labels, in the living musical traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It moves through bush ballads, dance halls, migrant influence, sweaty pub stages, pirate radio energy, suburban garages, community scenes and internet-born artists creating far from the traditional centres of culture.

Australia did not inherit one sound, it built one from influences from all over.

Because of geography, Australian artists have long worked with a strange tension: close enough to absorb global influence, far enough to reshape it. Styles often arrived from Britain, America or elsewhere, but rarely stayed unchanged.

Rock got rougher, pop leaned brighter (or just weirder), punk felt more unhinged, electronic music opened up and became more expansive, and hip-hop turned into a way of talking about migration, class and what modern Australia actually looks like.

Again and again, Australian music has turned distance into character.

Before the Nation: The First Music of the Land

Any serious history of Australian music must begin with the one of the oldest continuing cultures on Earth.

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have sustained musical traditions tied to ceremony, language, kinship, memory and Country. Music was a way of carrying knowledge, law, ancestry and relationship through generations.

Songlines connected land, navigation and story, while voice, rhythm and dance carried deep communal meaning. Instruments varied across regions — from clapsticks and drums in some Torres Strait Islander traditions to the yidaki, often called the didgeridoo in English, especially associated with Arnhem Land.

This isn’t a prelude to Australian music history, it’s the foundation of it.

Modern Australian music continues to be shaped by First Nations artists bringing language, truth-telling, humour, resistance and continuity into contemporary forms.

Bush Ballads, Folk Songs and a Colonial Identity

After British colonisation began in 1788, imported Irish, Scottish and English folk traditions met convict hardship, frontier violence, labour culture and the realities of distance.

Songs travelled through camps, settlements, shearing sheds and goldfields. Over time, bush ballads emerged as one of the first recognisably local popular forms: songs about workers, wanderers, injustice, drought, survival and irreverence toward authority.

No song became more symbolic than “Waltzing Matilda,” first published in the 1890s. It was not an official anthem, but it functioned like one for many people: proof that music could help imagine a national identity before the nation fully existed.

Australian music was already doing something it would keep doing for generations: mythologising itself while laughing at itself.

Cities, Dance Halls and the Radio Age

By the early twentieth century, Australia’s urban centres were increasingly plugged into international entertainment culture. Jazz, vaudeville, theatre orchestras and dance halls flourished in Sydney, Melbourne and beyond.

Broadcast music created shared listening across enormous distances. What happened in one city could now be heard nationally. It helped turn performers into household names and helped audiences develop a common cultural reference point.

American jazz and swing had major influence, but local scenes mattered too. Australia was no longer only consuming music, it was building an industry around it.

Rock ’n’ Roll and the Birth of Youth Culture

The arrival of rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s changed Australian culture in the same way it did elsewhere: teenagers suddenly had music that felt like theirs.

Johnny O’Keefe became one of the country’s first major rock stars, helping localise a genre born overseas. Television, introduced in 1956, accelerated the shift. Music was now visual as well as sonic.

By the 1960s, surf groups, beat bands and pop acts were thriving. Australia still looked heavily to Britain and America, but something important had changed: the infrastructure for a homegrown modern music culture now existed.

The Pub Rock Era: Australia Finds Its Volume

If one movement most clearly shaped modern Australian music identity, it was pub rock.

From the 1970s into the 1980s, an extensive circuit of hotels, pubs and clubs became one of the toughest live proving grounds in the world. Bands had to win audiences in real time.

You either had songs, stamina and presence, or you didn’t.

This environment helped produce acts such as:

• AC/DC

• Cold Chisel

• Midnight Oil

• The Angels

• Rose Tattoo

• Australian Crawl

• early INXS

Pub rock was physical music built for crowded rooms. Working and middle-class spaces turned live music into ritual: a release after work, a social language, a place where national temperament could be heard at full volume.

Australia did not just imitate rock music, it toughened it.

Punk, Post-Punk and the Outsiders

Not every artist belonged in the pub rock mould.

Brisbane’s The Saints were among the earliest great punk bands anywhere, releasing “(I’m) Stranded” in 1976. Their urgency arrived almost simultaneously with first-wave punk in the UK and US, a reminder that Australia was not always culturally behind.

Then came stranger forms.

Nick Cave and The Birthday Party turned chaos into theatre. Underground scenes in Melbourne and Sydney embraced noise, goth, experimental rock and outsider identity. These artists often benefited from distance. Removed from global trend centres, they could become harsher, weirder and less obedient.

That outsider streak would become one of Australia’s most valuable musical traits till date.

Country Music and Regional Australia

While urban scenes often dominate cultural narratives, country music has been one of Australia’s most enduring and commercially significant traditions.

Artists such as Slim Dusty helped define a distinctly Australian country voice rooted in roads, labour, humour and regional life. Later figures like John Williamson and Kasey Chambers carried the form into new eras.

This mattered because Australia has never only been a city story. Regional identity, rural mythology and life beyond metropolitan centres have always shaped national culture. Country music kept that perspective audible.

Pop Exports and International Success

By the late 1980s and 1990s, Australian artists were no longer just domestic stars or touring bands. They were global figures.

INXS became one of the era’s biggest bands. Kylie Minogue became an international pop institution. Savage Garden topped charts worldwide. Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” became one of the defining pop songs of its moment. The Bee Gees, though born in the UK, developed significantly in Australia before global fame.

Australia had entered the export era.

The significance was psychological as much as commercial. Australian artists no longer needed to leave identity behind to compete internationally.

Triple J and a National Taste Culture

Few institutions shaped contemporary Australian music more than triple j.

Originally launched in Sydney in 1975 before later expanding nationally, the youth broadcaster became a discovery engine, gatekeeper, community hub and launchpad for local talent. For many Australians, triple j was not just radio, it was a map.

Its annual Hottest 100 became a national ritual. Its support helped build careers across genres.

Through the 1990s and 2000s, artists such as:

• Silverchair

• Powderfinger

• Grinspoon

• Missy Higgins

• The Living End

• Hilltop Hoods

• Jet

• Wolfmother

all benefited from a culture where local music still had shared national pathways.

Streaming later fragmented this monoculture, but for decades triple j gave Australia something rare: a common soundtrack.

Women Who Reshaped the Story

No honest history of Australian music can treat women as side notes.

From Helen Reddy’s global impact in the 1970s to Kylie’s pop longevity, Tina Arena’s vocal legacy, Missy Higgins’ songwriting voice, Courtney Barnett’s indie sharpness, Sia’s global songwriting dominance, Amy Shark’s commercial rise, and countless others, women have repeatedly expanded what Australian music could be.

They have often done so while navigating industries slower to recognise them.

Today, many of the country’s most exciting scenes right now are being shaped by women and non-binary artists across indie, electronic, punk, R&B and pop.

Tame Impala and the New Global Cool

Kevin Parker’s Tame Impala marked another shift.

Emerging from Perth, far from eastern media centres, the project fused psychedelic rock with obsessive studio craft and pop instinct. What began as a celebrated psych act became one of the most influential modern bands anywhere.

The symbolism mattered more than people realise, it showed how an artist working from geographic distance can now shape global sound directly.

And, honestly that had always been Australia’s hidden advantage.

Hip-Hop, Migration and the New Australia

Australian hip-hop began as a niche movement but has become one of the clearest mirrors of contemporary national identity.

Early commercial breakthroughs included Hilltop Hoods and Bliss n Eso. Later generations widened the frame dramatically.

Artists from migrant communities, suburban scenes and First Nations backgrounds used rap to speak about race, policing, class, belonging, masculinity and ambition.

Acts such as A.B. Original, Briggs, Barkaa, OneFour, Genesis Owusu and many others helped move Australian hip-hop beyond imitation into something culturally specific and urgent.

First Nations Renaissance

Contemporary Australian music is increasingly unimaginable without First Nations leadership.

Archie Roach’s truth-telling, Gurrumul’s spiritual presence, Yothu Yindi’s historic crossover success, Baker Boy’s language-forward joy, Thelma Plum’s songwriting, King Stingray’s Yolŋu surf-rock energy and many more have reshaped the national soundscape.

Some of the most future-facing Australian music is also deeply connected to the oldest traditions.

That is what is really exciting about whats happening in the current scene.

What Australian Music Sounds Like Now

Today, Australian music is less unified and more alive than ever.

Streaming ended the old monoculture. Scenes now coexist rather than dominate.

• Melbourne continues to thrive as a live music city with punk, indie, jazz and underground energy.

• Sydney produces rap, pop and hybrid scenes shaped by migration and density.

• Perth maintains a reputation for left-field innovation.

• Brisbane and Adelaide sustain strong independent communities.

• Regional artists can now build audiences online without relocating first.

Genre boundaries matter less than they once did. A rapper may make punk songs, a country artist may use electronic production, or a rock band may think like bedroom producers.

The old question was: What does Australian music sound like?

The better question now is: How many Australian sounds can exist at once?

Moments That Defined the Sound

Throughout its history, Australian music hasn’t just evolved through genres — it has been shaped by moments. Breakthrough performances, political songs, global successes and underground movements that shifted perception. These moments remind us that the story of Australian music isn’t just gradual — it’s punctuated by impact.

AC/DC Breaks Through Globally (Late 1970s)
From Sydney pubs to global arenas, proving Australian rock could travel.

The Saints Release (I’m) Stranded (1976)
A foundational punk moment.

Yothu Yindi – Treaty (1991)
A defining political song in Australian music.

The Triple J Hottest 100 Era (1990s–2000s)
A cultural institution shaping national taste.

Flume Wins a Grammy (2017)
Australian electronic music reaching global dominance.

Australia never had one musical identity. It had many, often arguing with each other.

Its greatest artists have emerged from contradiction: isolation and ambition, roughness and craft, humour and melancholy, local scenes and global dreams.

That may be why Australian music continues to resonate.

It was never built from certainty. It was built by people far from the centre, trying to make something real — and discovering that the distance itself could become a strength.

Some bands spend years trying to define their sound. Divers seem more interested in escaping definition altogether.

Across three EPs, the Naarm/Melbourne four-piece built a reputation for restless evolution — moving between slacker indie rock, warped electronics, post-punk tension, surreal humour and moments that feel like they were discovered by accident rather than carefully designed.

That unpredictability is what made them interesting. On Odd Dog in the Capital, it becomes what makes them special.

Released on May 1, Divers’ debut album feels less like a formal first statement and more like the natural result of years spent experimenting without needing permission.

The title itself says plenty. Odd Dog in the Capital captures the discomfort (and freedom) of being outsiders in a scene obsessed with categories, algorithms and easy branding. Divers don’t sound built for neat playlists or obvious lanes. They sound like four friends following instinct until something clicks.

That looseness runs through the entire record. Yet beneath the weirdness is a band with sharp songwriting instincts.

The third single from the album, “Head Chef”, is the clearest example. On paper, a track built around breakfast, coffee, brisket and kitchen ego should collapse under its own joke.

Instead, it turns into one of the album’s most infectious moments: a wiry, high-energy song about inflated self-importance disguised as kitchen chaos. It’s funny, catchy, slightly ridiculous, and deeply precise in how it works.

Even the presentation reinforces that spirit. The cover art’s wild-eyed blue dog staring over a city skyline feels like the album’s mascot: slightly chaotic, impossible to categorise, and strangely charming.

Combined with titles like “The Great Tree”, “Cruisy Confusion”, “The Mouse” and “Health Freak”, Odd Dog in the Capital presents itself less like a conventional indie release and more like a collection of strange urban fables.

The World of the Album

The opening track “Plans” wastes no time pulling listeners into Divers’ universe.

It begins with an almost sinister laugh before unfolding into something quirky, jagged and intentionally off-centre. It is not the kind of opener designed to ease people in — which is exactly why it works. Starting the album this way shows a band fully confident in the strange language they have built for themselves.

One of the hardest things for any band to achieve is a sound that feels unmistakably their own. Divers have flirted with that identity across previous releases, but Odd Dog in the Capital is where it fully clicks into place.

“Plans” feels built on instability — chaotic rhythms, sudden turns and production choices that never let you settle. That same spirit runs through the broader record. The album often moves in extremes: “Sand Dunes” leans into dancefloor energy with disco and electronic textures, while “Beep Beep” hits with a heavier, more abrasive force. That contrast becomes one of the album’s biggest strengths.

What ties it all together is the sense that Divers are building a world rather than chasing a genre. Their music can be difficult to pin down, but experimentation has always been central to what they do. On this album, that instinct feels sharper and more purposeful than ever.

That is what the title captures so well. An odd dog naturally stands out. You may not fully get it at first, but you remember it.

Odd Dog in the Capital works in the same way.

It is not an album built for everyone, nor does it try to fit the increasingly common template of clean, predictable indie music. Instead, it chooses personality, risk and originality — and becomes far more memorable because of it.

Humour, Anxiety and Real Meaning Beneath the Weirdness

One of the best things about Odd Dog in the Capital is how much it says without ever forcing the point.

Divers rarely approach ideas in a direct or overly serious way. Instead, they filter them through humour, strange characters, sideways storytelling and a constant sense of mischief. That playful surface is part of the appeal, but it also hides a surprising amount of emotional and thematic depth.

“Head Chef” is a perfect example. It arrives as one of the album’s funniest and most immediate songs, built around kitchen imagery, caffeine-fuelled energy and exaggerated personality. But underneath the absurdism is a sharp take on ego, pressure and the performance of status. It pokes fun at people who take themselves too seriously, while still sounding like a blast.

Elsewhere, “The Great Tree” expands the album’s world into something more reflective. It carries a sense of environmental unease and frustration with short-term thinking, but never turns into a lecture. Divers understand that satire can often land harder than sincerity, and the song benefits from that balance.

What makes Divers compelling is that they never separate meaning from fun. Many bands can write serious songs, and many bands can write quirky songs. Fewer can combine both without losing momentum. Odd Dog in the Capital consistently finds that middle ground.

Standout Moments

A few moments on the record hit especially hard:

Cruisy Confusion

“Cruisy Confusion” feels like one of the album’s most complete moments. Built around a rolling guitar riff that carries grit through nearly every second of the track, it sounds loose, but never careless — something Divers do really well.

What makes the song hit harder is the emotional core beneath its swagger. While the production and hooks carry confidence, the writing comes from a more vulnerable place. Ben Bray has described the track as emerging during a period of identity crisis, wanting to make music that felt genuine rather than chasing the wrong reasons. You can feel that honesty in the performance.

Lyrically, “Cruisy Confusion” captures the strange emotional swings of adulthood — workplace banter, nostalgia, boredom, overstimulation and the search for something real underneath routine.

The real turning point, though, comes in the second half.

The song opens up into a bigger, more euphoric stretch where the instrumentation takes over and carries everything forward. It is the kind of section that reminds you Divers are not just interesting songwriters, but a genuinely exciting band musically.

At over four and a half minutes, it never feels long. If anything, “Cruisy Confusion” feels like one of the clearest examples of what makes this album work: personality, movement, vulnerability and a refusal to stay predictable.

Head Chef

“Head Chef” is the kind of song that feels destined to travel. It has already been making waves, and for good reason.

From the first listen, it lands immediately. One of those songs you replay before it’s even finished. Every section feels like it is teasing the next, which gives the track a constant sense of momentum.

There is something deeply everyday about its appeal. This is the sort of song you throw on while cooking breakfast, making coffee or moving through the house with energy. It turns ordinary routines into something a little more cinematic. Few songs manage to feel this casual and this carefully constructed at the same time.

What makes “Head Chef” especially effective is the contrast at its centre. Lyrically, it plays with ego, status and self-importance through kitchen-world imagery, but musically it feels joyful, loose and alive. Divers use that bait-and-switch brilliantly. Beneath the humour is satire, but above it is pure fun.

The hook is impossible to ignore, the groove keeps swerving just when you think you’ve caught it, and the band know exactly when to lean into absurdity without overdoing it. It is catchy without sounding obvious, weird without losing accessibility.

Every time “Head Chef” comes on, it does the same thing: it makes you move without thinking.

Odd Dog in the Capital is not an album built for passive listening. Give it a few listens and its strange little universe starts opening up. Some songs hit immediately, others slowly reveal themselves over time, but almost all of them carry the same sense of character and intention.

What makes the record worth returning to is that Divers never chase easy answers. They back personality over polish, surprise over formula and instinct over trend. In doing so, they have created a debut that feels genuinely their own.

For listeners tired of algorithm-friendly sameness and predictable indie releases, Odd Dog in the Capital offers something rarer: a band that sounds like themselves.

Some bands take years to sound incredible. Others spend years quietly experimenting, failing, learning, then emerge already sharp. Public Figures feel like the latter. They arrive with the urgency of a new band, but the instincts of one that has already done the groundwork.

The Naarm/Melbourne four-piece, built around longtime collaborators Evie Vlah and Gigi Argiro, introduced themselves with “Onto Something” in May 2025. It didn’t feel like a tentative debut. It felt like a band that already understood tension, hooks, identity, and visual language. Less than a year later, Figure It Out! lands as a debut EP that feels fully formed rather than exploratory.

Across six tracks and roughly thirteen minutes, Public Figures do what strong punk records often do best: say a lot without overstaying their welcome. No wasted space. No filler. No over-explaining.

The Visual Language of Figure It Out!

The first thing that stands out about Figure It Out! is the visual world around it.

The artwork feels like an underground zine found in a sharehouse kitchen, or pasted onto a city wall after midnight.

Black-and-white collage photography, newspaper typography, cut-and-paste disorder, fragmented portraits, vinyl-era sequencing (“Side A / Side B”), ransom-note aesthetics, punk tabloid energy.

That matters, because Public Figures seem deeply aware of one of punk’s oldest truths: image can be a weapon when substance backs it up. The EP cover mirrors the record itself, fragmented identity, public personas, media distortion, inner confusion, resistance through style.

Even the band name becomes sharper in this context.

Public Figures suggests performance, surveillance, labels, visibility, judgment. Who are you when everyone is looking? Who are you when nobody is?

Then the title: Figure It Out!

That phrase can be read as a command, a frustration, a self-challenge, or generational exhaustion.

The Themes Running Through the Record

Without needing to spell everything out, Figure It Out! constantly circles a few central tensions.

Identity vs Expectation

There is a recurring sense of people trying to define themselves while being shaped by outside forces. Whether it is social roles, relationships, public perception, or wider systems, these songs often feel like a pushback against being boxed in.

Emotional Burnout

The record carries the feeling of mental fatigue without collapsing into self-pity. There is frustration here, overstimulation, emotional repetition, and the exhaustion of trying to stay steady while everything around you feels unstable.

Entrapment and Escape

Several moments across the EP suggest cycles people struggle to break out of — dead-end routines, toxic patterns, internal loops, city pressure, economic strain, or emotional dependence. The songs often sit in the tension between wanting freedom and feeling caught.

Defiance and Boundaries

For all its anxiety, this is not a passive record. There is confrontation throughout Figure It Out! The energy often feels like reclaiming space, calling something out, refusing manipulation, or drawing a line where one didn’t exist before.

Modern Alienation

There is also something distinctly current about the EP. This doesn’t sound like retro punk cosplay. It feels rooted in a generation dealing with overstimulation, visibility, fractured attention, unstable economics, and emotional numbness.

That is what gives the project relevance.

Coolworths Top 2 Picks from the EP

1) Cut It Out

There could not have been a better way to open Figure It Out! than with Cut It Out. It immediately throws you into Public Figures’ world with one of the sharpest guitar riffs on the project, a sense of urgency, and a hook that feels impossible not to shout back. If there was one track on the EP that fully captures the band’s songwriting strengths, it is this.

What makes the song hit harder is how much attitude it carries without feeling forced. There is swagger here, but it is backed by craft. The chorus lands instantly, the guitars bite, and the whole thing feels like controlled chaos.

Lyrically, Cut It Out revolves around power, ego, validation, and rejection. There is a tension between wanting approval and wanting freedom from the same systems that hand it out. The references to worship, control, image, and performance make the song feel like a takedown of fake dynamics, whether in relationships, social circles, or wider culture.

And then there is the video. Shot largely inside a lift, it proves Public Figures understand something many bands miss: creativity matters more than budget. It is minimal, raw, stylish, and completely in tune with the song’s energy.

2) How I’m Feeling

Closing the EP with How I’m Feeling was a smart move. Where some of the earlier tracks punch outward, this one turns inward. It still carries punk DNA lyrically, but musically there is an off-kilter bounce to it that makes the frustration feel strangely addictive rather than heavy-handed.

The song taps into urban fatigue, emotional burnout, social alienation, and that recurring feeling of being mentally drained by your surroundings.

At its core, this track feels like someone caught between overstimulation and self-awareness. They know they are spiralling, they know the environment is feeding it, and they know they need distance — from people, from the city, maybe even from themselves.

As an EP closer, How I’m Feeling leaves you with the most human side of Public Figures. Beneath the riffs, attitude, and aesthetics, there is real vulnerability sitting underneath it all.

Why This EP Works

What makes Figure It Out! land so well is that it never feels like imitation. Plenty of young bands borrow from punk’s sound, its clothes, or its attitude. Public Figures understand that punk has always been bigger than aesthetics.

That spirit runs through this EP.

More importantly, Figure It Out! feels emotionally current. These songs carry the pressure of modern life — overstimulation, identity fatigue, social performance, city frustration, the need to protect your own space. It speaks in the language of punk, but it speaks to now.

Public Figures also understand something many debut bands take years to learn: identity matters. They already have a visual world, a point of view, and a sense of themselves that goes beyond individual tracks.

If Figure It Out! is the introduction, Public Figures may already be onto something much bigger.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s picks:

Vacant Space — Cosmic Vice

Cosmic Vice have always known how to write a strong song, but there has been a noticeable shift in what they’re doing over the past year. Since 2025, the band feels sharper, more confident, and more complete in the way they build records. The instincts were always there, but now the songwriting feels like it has caught up with the ambition.

“Vacant Space” is probably the clearest example of that growth.

Originally released as the second single from Inner Clear back in October 2025, the track still hits just as hard now that the full EP is out. Some singles lose their shine once the wider project arrives. This one hasn’t. If anything, it feels stronger in context.

The first thing that grabs you is the hook. Immediate, memorable, and built to stay with you long after the song ends. From there, the track keeps unfolding — tight rhythm work, strong pacing, and a guitar solo from Nicholas that gives the song another lift entirely.

Lyrically, “Vacant Space” taps into something many people understand but struggle to articulate: the feeling of being mentally stuck while life keeps moving around you.

The repeated lines about hiding behind thoughts and “silly little rhymes” suggest someone who once used humour, distraction, or creativity as a shield — but is finding it harder to cope now that everything is arriving at once.

Island, Haven, Home — Ben Lunt

There are certain singer-songwriters who make you stop what you’re doing the moment they start singing. Not because they are loud or dramatic, but because there is something in the voice that feels lived-in.

Bob Dylan had that quality in his own way, where the voice itself became part of the storytelling. Ben Lunt gives us a similar feeling every time we hear him.

The Perth-based indie folk artist has a voice that pulls you in quietly. There is conviction in how he delivers lines, but never in an overdone way. It feels natural, like someone speaking truths they’ve already spent time with. That is what makes you listen closely.

“Island, Haven, Home” is one of those songs that feels soothing from the very first moments, yet underneath that warmth is something deeper. It carries the feeling of reflection, movement, gratitude, and the kind of love that becomes an anchor as life changes around you.

This can be heard as a love song, but also something wider than romance. It could be about a partner, family member, or even a place that gives someone peace. The language of island, haven, and home speaks to safety — somewhere to return when the world feels unstable.

Musically, the track is gentle, calming, and beautifully understated. Even if you never paid attention to the lyrics, it leaves you feeling peaceful. But when you do listen closely, there is real substance inside it.

Ben Lunt has that rare ability to make intimacy feel effortless. “Island, Haven, Home” is another reminder that sometimes the quietest songs say the most.

No Good at Goodbyes — Willowbank Grove

This has to be one of our favourite songs musically on this week’s list.

There are songs you enjoy, and then there are songs where everything just feels locked in — the vocals, the emotion, the arrangement, the timing, the chemistry between the players. “No Good at Goodbyes” sits in that second category. It is the kind of track that reminds you why some bands feel destined for bigger stages.

And right now, Willowbank Grove feel like one of those bands.

There are certain artists you hear once and instinctively know they are going places. Not because of hype, not because of numbers, but because the foundations are already there. The songwriting makes sense, the identity feels real, and the music has movement. Willowbank Grove have that feeling around them.

They have already completed two Australian tours and released a strong debut album in 2024, which gave a clear glimpse of their potential. But like most real band stories, the road has not been completely smooth. In 2025, two founding members departed. Fifteen months passed without new music. For many bands, that kind of period can stall momentum or create doubt around what comes next.

Instead, they returned with “Now and Then,” and since then everything feels like it has begun moving upward again.

The current lineup looks sharp, settled, and energised. More importantly, it sounds like a band that has learned something through change. Sometimes setbacks strip away noise and leave only what matters. With Willowbank Grove, that process seems to have strengthened them.

“No Good at Goodbyes” is a perfect example of why we rate them so highly.

Nobody can predict the future with certainty. Music never works that neatly. But some bands create their own momentum by consistently sounding ready.

Willowbank Grove sound ready.

And with a second album on the horizon, expectations are high for good reason.

Long and Short — Matt Corby

Matt Corby is a name most people in Australia would already know. Many first discovered him as the 16-year-old runner-up on Australian Idol back in 2007, but the years since have shown something far more important than reality TV recognition: longevity, artistic growth, and a refusal to stay in one lane.

Now on his fourth studio album, Tragic Magic (released 17 April), Corby sounds like an artist fully comfortable following instinct rather than expectation. The record moves freely across moods, textures, and ideas across 13 tracks.

There are several strong songs across the project, but the one that hit us hardest was “Long and Short.”

The track carries extra emotional weight, written after the passing of his partner’s mother from pancreatic cancer. Knowing that context helps explain why the song feels so tender, reflective, and human. It is a grief song, but not in the obvious sense. Rather than drowning in sadness, it chooses gratitude, perspective, and love while staring directly at life’s fragility.

Matt Corby has spent years evolving into an artist with depth, patience, and craft. “Long and Short” is another reminder of why he has lasted this long — and why he still matters now.

You and Me — Tori Forsyth

Tori Forsyth returned in 2024 with the ARIA-nominated and widely acclaimed All We Have Is Who We Are, a record that reaffirmed her as one of Australia’s most thoughtful and emotionally grounded songwriters. Then, after that run, things went quiet.

Until March this year, we had heard nothing new.

“You and Me” is only the second song she has released since then, and it feels like a meaningful continuation of where her writing has been heading — honest, intimate, and deeply connected to real life rather than surface-level romance. It may also be the closest thing to a pure love song we have heard from her, though even here, love is not presented in some glossy cinematic way. It is shown through exhaustion, support, sacrifice, and wanting peace together.

That is what makes it land.

The song opens with a feeling many people know too well:

“Life is so busy, and I can’t help but feel / Like I’m missing everything that’s actually real.”

Straight away, Forsyth taps into one of the defining anxieties of modern life. We stay occupied, productive, responsible — yet often feel disconnected from the things that matter most. Time moves, days blur, and suddenly life can feel more managed than lived.

She follows that with a longing for simplicity:

“I sometimes wish my responsibility / Was no more than hearing birds amongst the trees.”

It is a beautiful line because it says so much with so little.

Tori Forsyth has always had a gift for making songs feel personal without excluding the listener. “You and Me” is a love song, yes — but more than that, it is a song about trying to protect what matters in a world that constantly pulls you away from it.

Stay tuned for next Friday’s roundup.

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The Queensland four-piece are building momentum quickly, but what stands out most is that the rise feels rooted in real songs, real energy, and a sense of identity people can connect to.

Every music scene has those moments where a band starts appearing everywhere at once.

You hear their name from one person, then see them on your feed a few days later, then notice clips from a live show, then finally sit down with the music and realise there is a reason they are cutting through. It is rarely one thing that causes that kind of movement. Usually it is timing meeting consistency, personality meeting songs, and a band figuring out how to make people feel like they want to be part of whatever is happening.

That is the sense around Vlads right now.

They have been building noticeable momentum over the last few months. Toward the end of 2024, they were sitting around 850 followers on Instagram. Two weeks later, that had reportedly jumped to 10,000. They are now past the 40,000 mark.

Those figures are not being mentioned here as some lazy measurement of worth. Numbers by themselves can be meaningless. But sometimes they help show that a shift is happening, that attention is gathering around something in real time.

And in Vlads’ case, once you spend time with the music, the rise feels understandable.

More Than Just Momentum

What immediately stands out is that they do not sound like a band trying to reverse-engineer coolness. A lot of modern acts, especially in the social media era, can feel as though the image arrived before the songs did. With Vlads, the songs seem to come first. There is personality in the presentation, sure, but it feels connected to something genuine rather than something assembled.

Their music carries a looseness that is often harder to create than polished perfection. It feels lived in. There is movement in it. There is sunshine in it, mischief in it, restless energy in it. The kind of music that sounds like it belongs outside rather than trapped in a screen.

That is probably why people are connecting.

World Domination and the Sound of Youth in Motion

Their latest EP World Domination is a good place to understand what they do well. It feels youthful without being immature, catchy without being empty, and easy to enjoy without becoming disposable. That balance matters.

Plenty of artists can write one infectious hook. Fewer can create songs that feel light on the surface while still carrying a bit of life underneath.

The opener Puppet Master sets the tone immediately. Even without overcomplicating it, the title alone suggests one of the recurring ideas many younger listeners know well: being pulled around by desire, by obsession, by someone else’s control, by wanting something that might not be good for you. It works as an entry point because it introduces movement and tension straight away.

Why “Suzuki” Says More Than It First Appears

Then comes Suzuki, one of the more revealing songs on the project.

At first listen, it glides by with the kind of easy charm that can make people miss what is actually being said. But the lyrics paint a recognisable picture of modern drift. A person glued to their phone, wasting hours, losing the day without meaning to, feeling time slip past in a haze of repetition.

“Glued to my phone all day long…”
“Wasted the day, it’s gone away…”

Drive the Suzuki into the ground. Find the surf before sundown. Leave town. Move. Do something.

There is something very Australian about that instinct. When things feel stagnant, get outside. Get moving. Put distance between yourself and whatever has trapped you.

Romance, Chaos and Sunlight

Cherry Lipstick moves into another familiar territory: infatuation intense enough to blur reason. The lyrics capture that rush where attraction becomes all-consuming, where someone takes over your thoughts and turns logic into decoration. It is playful on the surface, but beneath it is the old story of desire making people act slightly foolish.

Then Sunshine Love arrives with warmth and sincerity. There is no need to overthink why songs like this work. Sometimes melody, openness, and emotional directness are enough. The imagery of flowers, sunlight, honey, and wanting to see someone shine gives the track a brightness that feels uncomplicated in the best way.

That might be one of Vlads’ strengths overall. They do not seem afraid of enjoyment.

A lot of contemporary music can feel burdened by the need to appear detached, hyper-self-aware, ironic, or emotionally armoured. Vlads often sound like they are comfortable embracing fun, romance, longing, boredom, chaos, and all the less glamorous parts of being young without dressing it up as something deeper than it needs to be.

Ironically, that honesty can feel deeper than forced seriousness.

Why They’re Connecting Right Now

The other reason they seem to be rising is consistency. In the current climate, plenty of artists want moments. Fewer want the slow repetition required to build something real. Showing up online, showing up on stage, releasing music people return to, giving listeners a world they recognise, all of that compounds.

That appears to be what has happened here.

Australia has always had more depth in its independent scene than outsiders sometimes realise. Great bands emerge from coastal towns, suburbs, cities, and scenes that never receive the same global spotlight as larger markets. Some break through, some remain cult favourites, and some arrive at exactly the right time.

Vlads feel like a band arriving at the right time, with the right kind of energy.

Whether they become massive or simply become one of those names people look back on fondly, they already seem to understand something many acts miss: people are not only looking for songs. They are looking for feeling, identity, movement, and something they can attach a memory to.

Right now, Vlads are giving listeners all four.