We are always on the hunt for hot new Australian bands, we figured Courtney Barnett’s own label, Milk! Records, might be a good place to start the search. There we stumbled upon Melbourne’s Jade Imagine, who combine the best of slacker-rock with a distinctly Aussie surf-pop sound. The band’s frontwoman, Jade McInally, has been on the Melbourne scene since the early 2000s, but it wasn’t until 2016 that she sent a pile of demos to Dave Mudie,Barnett’s drummer. From there, McInally formed Jade Imagine with several other vets of the Aussie indie realm: Liam “Snowy” Halliwell of The Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch, Tim Harvey of Real Feelings and James Harvey of Teeth and Tongue. Together, they’re Jade Imagine, and they’ve yet to release a full-length LP, which means 2019 could be their big year.
from the Debut EP “What The Fuck Was I Thinking” By Jade Imagine, thru Milk! Records
TFS is the new band formed by Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin (from Australia’s epic art punk psych maniacs The Drones) with Lauren Hammel (High Tension) on drums, and Erica Dunn (Harmony / Palm Springs) playing guitars, keys and other gadgets.
We’re not sure why so many Aussies got bit by the bad-band-name-bug, but Tropical Fuck Storm were certainly not exempt from the plague. If you can pardon their unfortunate moniker, however, and focus on their music, you just might find yourself smitten with their manic psych-rock.
from TFS album A Laughing Death In Meatspace and available on TFS Records/Mistletone
They released a totally bonkers-in-all-the-right-ways record in 2018, the weird and wild A Laughing Death in Meatspace. Fans of the now-defunct The Drones might recognize Tropical Fuck Storm’s lead singer, GarethLiddiard, who was a founding member of the former band back in 1997. Liddiard is still working with Drones mate Fiona Kitschin for this new project TFS, but it’s a completely different animal. They recruited two Melbourne vets, and now it seems like the four of them might be Australia’s version of Diarrhea Planet, a kind of mythical live act and purveyor of noisy pop-punk. TFS aren’t for everyone, but if they’re for you, we’re pretty sure it won’t take you long to get on board.
Tropical Fuck Storm – You Let My Tyres Down Recorded Live – Paste Studios – New York, NY
“I’m so scared to get out of here / But I really want to get out of here.” It’s a line from “Strange Light”—a late standout from the sophomore LP by The Goon Sax and I’m not sure there’s a lyric that better sums up the feelings of late adolescence. Those prime years when your conflicting instincts are all fucking with each other, and the endless possibilities preached at you from childhood become paralyzing instead of promising. Growing pains and dawning realizations abound, but it’s in this mess that we finally wind up meeting ourselves. It’s an experience you might have all over again after listening to We’re Not Talking, the latest effort from the Brisbane trio. The band’s first album, filled with achingly familiar suburban references like Target and sweaty-palmed hand-holding, was released when Louis Forster, James Harrison and Riley Jones were just 17. This makes Talking, released two years later, an interesting crystallization of growing up. Taken out of context, a line like “I never knew what love meant / And I still don’t,” would be grounds for a heartbreaking ballad, but here it’s just a passing observation, a scanning self-analysis on the way to being an adult. For The Goon Sax, growing up sounds pretty good.
Melbourne’s Terry has perfected a blasé, disaffected take on indie pop that smartly avoids cynicism and sarcasm. Last year’s I’m Terry, their third album in three years, is another strong collection of unassuming pop hits—often flat and plodding in that Australian way but always richly melodic, and with a warm homemade aesthetic that reflects the modesty typically found down under. Terry’s one of those bands that could’ve existed at any point in the last 30 or 40 years—they would’ve fit right in on Flying Nun—but are also always unmistakably themselves.
I’m Terry.
They are Terry. Three LPs in three years that continue to fulfil their promise of their first 7”s: one moment a witty “art” punk Wire scramble, the next moment a dumb “pub” punk oi stomper, the next a beautifully orchestrated shimmering soundscape of rudimentary melodies cascading over one another; the point being these are disparate but always succinct songs soaked in melodies, vocal harmonies that sing-song verses and terrace chant choruses, all peppered with flourishes of synths, horns and violins.
They perfected this almost immediately, and each record is a masterful fulfillment, and so…I’m Terry.
There are so few bands attempting lyrics along these lines, so it’s worth to point toward them, as this is Terry: please be kind. We are spared the righteous indignation of identity politicians, but the empathy here for those under the boot of the colony, of the fortress, of the rich and privileged, and the disappointment and disgust at the effects of what we are calling toxic masculinity informs their more aggressive lambast, and this is delivered in an overt lyricism that doesn’t disintegrate into preach or self loathing lamentation.
There’s an unbridled joy in Terry at the experience of making songs in times they are clearly contrary to, the empathy and the pleas for kindness and all that… I’m Terry is an expression of a humbling kindness, and 2018 needs more Terry!
2019 is the going to be a good year for Australian band Sweater Curse’s moment. After a year of clever youngsters delivering some of the best indie-rock music, I’m ready for more, and this Brisbane trio is ready to provide. They’ve yet to release their debut LP—or even an EP—but their singles, especially the regretful “Can’t See You Anymore,” were enough to grab our attention. If they opt to release full-length material in 2019, they’re bound to attract fans of artists like Forth Wanderers, Camp Cope and Snail Mail. But Sweater Curse aren’t copy-cats—their walls of sound, tongue-and-cheek phrasing and vocal teamwork are entirely their own. Writing songs that have been described as ‘slightly depressing but still groovy’ and ‘introspective, slightly sparkly indie-rock’ the band carved out a niche for themselves with a throwback feel.
‘Mon’s Song’ is the new standout from Sweater Curse, one of Brisbane’s best new bands. It’s 90s crunch meets millenial angst for fans of CAMP COPE or even City Calm Down. Brisbane has a rich history of amazing indie rock and you are carrying the torch with class. They’re drawn to the honesty of the Australian indie-rock sound citing acts like The Smith Street Band to Jess Locke and everyone in between as big influences. They write about moments in their lives and relatable experiences and situations, extending their domestic experience into song form.
First rule of band names: make sure your name doesn’t contain the genre of music you play. The band’s colossal, eccentric pop/rock sound is undeniably psychedelic and it’s kind of cheesy to have the genre explicitly in the title. After giving them a pass for a corny, playfully ridiculous name, you can let yourself wander in their magical, sweeping soundscapes. Singles like “Social Candy” and “Marmalade March” invoke equal amounts of high-spirited fun and virtuoso musicianship. Listening to their music requires listeners to abandon their inhibitions and embark on whatever gleaming psych-pop joyride they offer. Their sound is accessible and melodious enough to appeal to pop/rock fans while their musical proficiency and wacky euphoria will also gel with diehard psych fans.
Sydney-based Flowertruck’s debut album, which was released in March 2018, is called “Mostly Sunny”, and there’s not a more perfect description for their ample, radiant synth-rock. Their sound, much like Phantastic Ferniture’s or Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s, is distinctly Aussie, with an emphasis on hooks and rock-solid melodies. The band says their album is “a valuable addition to any discerning motorist’s passenger-side seat or glove compartment,” and it is, but it’s also primed for beach-side boomboxes. As you sludge through a lousy North American winter, this record will conjure images of our friends in the Southern Hemisphere soaking up the sun. There’s enough darkness in the world—why not treat yourself to something light and easy?
Enough For Now is the first single from our debut EP, ‘Mostly Sunny’.
Like the The Damned down under, Amyl and the Sniffers are embracing the Australian ‘bogan’ stereotype, these Rough Trade signees are a liquor-swigging, poppers-snooting, mullet-rocking gang whose music straddles punk and FM rock – and whose gigs are sweatier than a Bondi Beach BBQ in mid summer.
you’re going to love them. They’re all about capturing lightning a bottle (a bottle of White Lightning, most likely). One of their two EPs to date, ‘Giddy Up’, was written, recorded and released in just 12 hours.
Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled) Available on a 7″ available through flightless Records,
Yet another Australian band that made one of the year’s finest records. Though Parcels have since relocated to Germany, they got their start in the same continent that’s supplied us with some of 2018’s best music. But while fellow Aussies like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Hatchie lean more indie rock, Parcels are an entirely different animal: Parcels is the long-awaited dance party from the funk-friendly quintet of Daft Punk protégés, proof that disco isn’t dead and never was. Their debut is tremendous fun, and it truly doesn’t sound like anything else happening in music today. That’s a huge accomplishment in itself, considering the broken dam of music constantly rushing our way through channels both digital and natural. Parcels feels miraculously out-of-place, conjuring ghosts of music movements past. But, with its perpetuation of millennial angst and ability to offer release through dance, it does so in a way that feels both necessary and relevant to our present day. Parcels aren’t the only Aussies making musical waves right now, but who else is bringing this much funk to the table? No one. “And that brings to the end of what we hope has been a beautiful trip for you and yours,” Dean Dawson sings in the album’s flight-inspired credits.
Daft Punk-approved dance-rock from Australia via Berlin, Parcels make blissed-out tunes for a life of sunshine, cocktails, discoballs and hijinks. Creating what should certainly be one of the year’s most enduring debuts, five slick-but-cheeky surf dudes arrived in style with collection of playful but considered poolside pop. It’s got a magpie approach to the music of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘Random Access Memories’ by their robot friends, but feels fresh, vital, and completely human.
“I thought that I would want so many in my lifetime / But now the only one is you,” Totally Mild lead singer Elizabeth Mitchell sings a few minutes into the band’s sensational Her, an album that confronts the stasis, the beauty, the ennui and the comfort that comes with domesticity. Blessed with a voice that sounds like your grandma’s finest crystal, Mitchell sings haunting ballads (“Lucky Stars”), jangly indie rock (“Take Today”) and slow-crawling burners (“More”). It adds up to a bracingly pretty album, which for my money also has the single best line on any song this year: “Heaven’s knowing what you want when you’re young,” Mitchell sings on the album’s centerpiece “Today Tonight.”
Following on from their acclaimed 2015 debut Down Time (released on Bedroom Suck in Australia, Fire Records in the UK), Her is a shining jewel of an album. Elizabeth Mitchell’s voice is a thing of unearthly beauty, capable of soaring and swooping in shiver-inducing ways. As a songwriter she is equally arresting, addressing desires and dreams with affecting frankness. About the new album, Mitchell says “Her is a record of failure and victory, new desire, stale romance, queer domesticity and what comes when the party is over. I was torn between a new domestic life and the impulse to tear it all away with bad choices. I fell in love, but I wrestled for independence. I was always trying to prove that I didn’t need anyone; my wife, my friends, my band. Her is a document of a woman struggling with the idea of potential. We are told that we could be limitless, but we wrestle with unseen personal and structural walls.”
In Totally Mild she is joined by guitar magician Zachary Schneider, drummer Ashley Bundang and bassist Lehmann Smith. In the last few years the band have developed a quasi-psychic intensity, surging forward or pulling back in seamless unison. This intensity has been captured in crystalline form by producer and one-time Architecture In Helsinki member James Cecil. Her is polished and spacious, while never losing the feeling of a band in full flight.
The Fat Angel Sings 