Sound Under Weekly Picks: 08 May 2026
This week leans heavily into melodic songwriting, nostalgic textures, and bands building worlds bigger than singles.
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?
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