Australian quartet The Belair Lip Bombs call their music “yearn-core,” mixing indie rock with country and power pop. It’s a very 2025 combination, but their second album feels timeless, pulling from ’70s AM radio, ’80s college rock, the ’90s country resurgence, and modern Australian indie. With warm charm, clever wordplay, and the powerful voice of singer/guitarist Maisie Everett front and center — backed by a sharp band — they deliver one instantly likable song after another. It’s the kind of record that makes you want to see them live. Fans of Wednesday’s Bleeds and The Beths’ Straight Line is a Lie should feel right at home.
On “Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Fair),” the new single from the Belair Lip Bombs, Maisie Everett’s singing is a blockbuster, and the riffs curling around her spill out of guitars that wouldn’t sound out of place on, say, that great new Florry album. The song is a saga of unpredictable volumes, skating through post-punk and country-rock like it’s no one’s business. Last month, I declared “Hey You” as one of my favorite songs of 2025 so far. I still think that, because I love how infectious and anthemic it is, but “Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Fair”) is just as perfect, perhaps even more so.
Alex Lahey came up with the “you gotta make your own luck,” and the the debaucherous, twin-guitar chords twist, shriek, and crash into honky-tonk bedlam. And that dirty tone on Jimmy Droughton’s bass… Stick a fork in me, I’m plum captivated! This is the Melbourne quartet at its best, in a bluesy hailstorm of porch-playing impulse. Halloween can’t come soon enough; I need Again here right now.
the upcoming album “Again”, out October 31, 2025 on Third Man Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 