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:
I Don’t Mind — Five Buck Kid
“I Don’t Mind” starts with pure fuck-you energy and never really lets up.
Melbourne independent band Five Buck Kid have built the track around the emotional messiness of a situationship, but instead of drowning in it, they turn that frustration into something loud, catchy and ridiculously fun.
The rhythm grabs you almost immediately, the drums are tight, and the hook is the kind that gets stuck in your head after one listen. But our favourite moment comes towards the end, when the guitar solo kicks in. It feels like all the frustration running through the song finally gets somewhere to go, capturing the emotion of the track without needing to spell it out.
Five Buck Kid are heading out on tour in October around the release of the track, and if you haven’t heard them yet, this is a very good place to start before digging into the rest of their catalogue.
If you like the storytelling and heart of Springsteen mixed with the swagger and guitar energy of Arctic Monkeys, there is a very good chance you’ll fuck with “I Don’t Mind.”
When The Shit Went Down — Ella Hooper
Ella Hooper first came into the public eye as the frontwoman of Killing Heidi, and at this stage of her career, she really doesn’t need to prove how good of a songwriter she is.
But “When The Shit Went Down,” the first single from her upcoming album *Overnight Success*, feels like an artist who still has plenty left to say.
There is a maturity to the song that immediately stands out. It deals with hitting rock bottom and everything that comes with those moments when life stops going the way you thought it would. It’s personal, but never so specific that you can’t find some part of yourself inside it.
That universality is probably what we connected with most. Regardless of age or background, most of us know what it feels like to have life knock us down, question where we’re going, and somehow have to figure out what comes next.
Hooper doesn’t romanticise that feeling. She writes from the perspective of someone who has lived enough life to understand that the difficult chapters are often the ones that change us the most.
If “When The Shit Went Down” is setting the emotional tone for *Overnight Success*, we’re very interested to see where the rest of the album takes us when it arrives in October.
Adeline — Outfront
After a few months away, Outfront return with their fourth single, “Adeline,” and honestly, what a way to come back.
This is everything we want from a good indie pop-rock song. The composition is bright and energetic, the hook sticks almost immediately, and there is a feel-good quality running through the track that makes standing still pretty difficult.
But the guitars are where “Adeline” really comes alive.
If we had to pick our favourite guitar solo from this week’s releases, this might be it. Scott Morrison deserves a special mention because his playing throughout the entire song is excellent, but when that solo arrives, it takes the track somewhere else entirely.
What we like about Outfront is that they don’t seem interested in overcomplicating things. “Adeline” is built around melody, movement and musicianship. Sometimes that’s all you need.
Clean — Hein Cooper
Hein Cooper is one of those artists you put on when you actually want to sit with your thoughts.
His music has always carried a sense of self-discovery, almost like you’re listening to someone figure things out in real time. If you haven’t heard him before, his 2025 album *My Own* is a very good place to start.
What makes Cooper special is how easily he can take you into something deeply personal while somehow making it feel like your own story.
“Clean” captures that beautifully.
There is something almost hypnotic about the composition. The song slowly pulls you into a different headspace, creating the kind of atmosphere where everything outside of it seems to disappear for a few minutes.
And by the time the song finishes, you might find yourself thinking about something you weren’t thinking about when it started.
Maybe that’s what “Clean” does best. It creates space. Space to think, reflect and perhaps understand something about yourself that you hadn’t quite figured out yet.
Disguise — Even Hannah
Three songs into this new chapter, it feels like Even Hannah are absolutely heading in the right direction.
Each release is revealing a little more of what this band are capable of, and “Disguise” takes their sound another step forward. There is something bigger about this one. The composition is groovy, the hooks land immediately, and the whole track carries the confidence of a band whose music feels increasingly built for much larger stages.
Honestly, we weren’t expecting them to push the sound this far this quickly, and that might be what makes “Disguise” such a welcome surprise.
When we previously wrote about “Chapter One,” we said there was something refreshing about hearing a band sound genuinely excited about what comes next. That song felt like a turning point, or at least the beginning of one.
“Disguise” makes that feeling even stronger.
Even Hannah have been steadily building momentum through energetic performances, big guitar hooks and songwriting that feels built for crowded rooms. While plenty of bands spend years trying to figure out exactly what they want to sound like, Even Hannah increasingly sound like a group becoming more confident with every release.
What stood out about “Chapter One” was the ambition behind it. “Disguise” feels like some of that ambition starting to become reality.
Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.
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