Public Figures – Figure It Out! Review

Naarm punk with purpose, style, and something real to say

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.