The Underground StageEssential new music from Australia’s most exciting artists
This song was clearly written to inspire head-banging, hair-shaking, and horn throwing. Every single note, every component part, every proton and neutron of its being is focussed on achieving that goal. It will not be distracted. It will not be stopped. You will comply.
Private Function’s blistered-raw sound is harnessed here in tribute to the twin-city enclave of Albury-Wodonga, which straddles the border between New South Wales and Victoria. It is triumphantly bonkers. If there was any justice, it would be played throughout the streets of its subject, all day and all night. Also: bonus points for having a […]
This wry little number starts off has a flighty trip to its step, lo-fi notes weaving in and out of focus, with explosive moments of abandon alongside ruminative pauses. Clever as all hell, but without losing its sense of play. Lovely.
A typically muscular release, Down For Tomorrow’s latest chugs and and roils in all the right places, a tumbling churning sea of guitar and song.
In which Self Talk carry on in their mission to make the world a slightly more sparkly place. Like the glint of a low sun in a blue sky, their songwriting just *glitters*. Warm up your shoulders, grab your favourite dancing partner.
The little scamps of Jerranis have always had teeth but they’re fully-bared here. After you navigate the slowly sinister intro, it all goes wildly sideways, with notes of Dead Kennedys and menace. It’s a blistering attack on the carotid in a blast of calculated ferocity, and it’s even more fun than that sounds.
This energetic rumination on middle age and death is – despite the message being that you’ll die alone and forgotten – a cheery old cove. Anyone who can bounce along like Tigger while riffing on the setting sun of your life owns a sharp wit and is not to be trifled with.
Hooper Crescent have released a flurry of tracks this year, all of it quietly inventive, and more than enough to snap your head around and make you pay attention. Just about everything is slightly off-kilter here, like traditional guitar pop in a funhouse mirror, somewhere between the wonky sensibiities of 80s pop oddities Prefab Sprout […]
Sounding like a car crashing through the side of your house, C.O.F.F.I.N don’t even touch the brakes on their latest, from the tyre-screeching opening riff through to the closing notes as it flies off the side of a cliff. This is high-voltage, vein-bulging twitchery that’s guaranteed to leave a nasty mark that you’ll never get […]