NEWS

Her Shadow Crown is a Melbourne duo built on quiet risk. Lida (songwriter, vocalist) and Alex (producer) are creative and life partners who make music that treats memory as a raw material, spinning past selves and childhood images into songs that shimmer with vintage pop textures. Lida writes toward younger versions of herself that were never fully understood or given a place, and Alex translates the emotional centre of each song into arrangement, texture and sound in a way t

Sydney’s Inner West rockers Yendys—Sam, Shane, Harry and Nick—are four mates navigating office jobs, rising rehearsal-room costs and the creeping suspicion that escape from the nine-to-five may no longer be possible. Fortunately, they have loud guitars, a shared love of palindromes and a reliable supply of small appliances to raffle off at their shows. Their rowdy, tongue-in-cheek rock ’n’ roll finds honesty in the everyday frustrations of working life without surrendering to

Shire are a band brought together by music. The Brisbane/Meanjin four-piece - Patrick McLeaire, Sylvie Morse, Angus Clifton and Ewan Heslop - came together through different paths while still in high school. Despite their different personalities and influences, three years of playing together have forged the group into what they now call their “final form.” Their debut single, Decay, sits somewhere between dream-pop, shoegaze and post-hardcore, introducing a band interested i

Cherokee Dreams is Joshua Lynchard's most authentic emotional dumping ground. Working primarily solo, pulling together an inherited grunge palette with lo-fi textures, MIDI drums, cassette dubs and hardly discernible narratives. It sits inside a wider constellation of collaborative bands where Joshua usually plays drums a little too fast with wobbly tempos (the Invisible Teardrops, the Dismals, Nightmare Boyzzz), and Cherokee Dreams is the version of him that fully leans into

Hurb Jephasun tells the same story in two languages. The Perth artist works in music and paint simultaneously, letting whichever medium an idea arrives in dictate its final form. Sometimes he wakes up with a fully-formed song already sitting in his head and races to record a demo before it fades. Other times a painting shows up the same way. Both come from the same place, a mind that trusts itself to know what needs to be made and refuses to overthink it into oblivion. The th

Louis Wall writes songs the way a kid takes apart old appliances to see what makes them tick. The Auckland-raised songwriter grew up questioning the normal, seeking the truth in a house where the truth wasn't always around, and music became the one place nobody could tell him he was wrong. He watched his two older sisters own the family SingStar mic and quietly practiced "What About Me" by Shannon Noll on his own time until he could out-score them. He kept the whole thing to

Tonkin Park write with the double consciousness of people who grew up on nu metal and stayed. The Perth band, made up of members in their thirties and forties, spent their formative years inside the primal screams and haunting melodies of Linkin Park, System of a Down, Deftones and Evanescence, and never quite left. What sets them apart is the second inheritance sitting behind that one. Their Filipino heritage plugs them into a deep pocket of the early 2000s metal genre still

Terrestrials arrive with the confidence of a band that knows exactly what it isn't. The South East Melbourne group treat "heavy" as a mood rather than a checklist, weaving jazz, funk, Latin and progressive rock into a dark alt rock foundation that refuses to sit in any one scene's lane. What holds it together is dynamics. Light and dark ambience, tension and release, the space between a hush and a hit. In Melbourne's heavy rooms alongside acts that stay firmly in one style, T

Most Epic Dream is the solo project of Damian Walters, a producer and songwriter who's built a whole world out of restlessness. Started under a name that once sounded aspirational and now reads as a quiet mission statement, the project has shifted through ambient, electronic pop, post-rock, goth and trip-hop over the last decade without ever losing its shape. What holds it together isn't a genre or a scene, it's an emotional register. Damian writes to work through things, to

Blackbird Green writes like someone who has been paying attention for a very long time. The Melbourne project, led by singer-songwriter Simon Ferwerda, has moved through line-ups and long stretches of quiet since 2013, but the through line has always been the same, songs that arrive when they are ready, not when they are demanded. Some of the tracks on the new album Spans were written twenty years ago and quietly put in the bank, waiting for the right moment to be pulled back

Bella Habib doesn’t pick a lane, she picks all of them at once. The 22 year old Sydney alt-pop artist writes from the exact spot where confidence and insecurity, glamour and mess, power and vulnerability sit on top of each other and refuse to separate. Her debut single “Royal Blue” is a study in that push and pull. The colour itself is the mood, expensive and regal on the surface, riptide and treasure underneath, and the song lives in the space between wanting something that

Faisal Ryan doesn't write like someone chasing a scene, he writes like someone who has already lived through a few. The Brisbane songwriter and producer treats a song the way a builder treats a house, one line laying the foundation for the next, an hour later the whole thing standing up on its own. There's a quiet confidence to that method. He hears the finished song in his head before the ink dries, and the production instincts he's sharpened over years now sit alongside the

Some artists chase the room. roar taylor would rather earn it. The Chicago writer builds songs the way a poet builds a case, word by word, line by line, until the meaning arrives on its own terms. There is no shouting for attention here, no trend to ride. What you get instead is a lyricist who treats language as the whole point, someone who names Stevie Wonder, Lupe, André 3000 and Black Thought not as flexes but as a lineage he is trying to write his way into. His upcoming E

Blending the melodic craftsmanship of classic songwriting with the dreamlike atmosphere of vintage video games, late-night television and fading childhood recollections, Warpspeed exists somewhere between reality and imagination. It's music that feels strangely familiar, as though you've wandered into a place you've never visited but somehow recognise. Rather than chasing modern trends or empty nostalgia, the project is driven by timeless melodies and the emotional pull of mo

Across an ever-growing catalogue of music, BURL3Y and IVY have quietly blurred the line between autobiography and storytelling, transforming everyday Australian life into an interconnected world filled with familiar faces, shared memories and recurring characters. What begins as hip-hop soon expands into something much larger, where each release feels less like a standalone single and more like another chapter in an unfolding story. At the heart of the project is an unwaverin

Most heavy bands write about destruction. High Horse Cavalry write about what comes after it. Their music is dense, uncompromising and drenched in the atmosphere of a world slowly collapsing under its own weight, yet beneath the crushing riffs and towering walls of sound lies something unexpectedly human. Rather than glorifying darkness, the band uses it as a path through it, transforming anxiety, isolation and emotional chaos into music that ultimately points toward clarity,

Some songwriters chase the next trend. Tim Lane has spent years chasing something far less fleeting: honesty. Drawing from the quiet landscapes of Tasmania, decades of performing, and a deep appreciation for the power of everyday stories, Lane has carved out a songwriting style that feels distinctly Australian without ever leaning on nostalgia. His music doesn't shout to be heard. Instead, it invites listeners to slow down, reflect, and find pieces of themselves within its ca

There are few genres that have endured quite like emo and pop-punk. Long after the eyeliner faded and the fringes grew out, the songs remained, continuing to soundtrack heartbreak, self-discovery and the moments in life that words alone struggle to explain. For DJ Queen Dani, those records were never simply nostalgic favourites. They became the foundation for building a community where authenticity, vulnerability and connection are celebrated just as loudly as the music itsel

For many musicians, the stage is where their identity is forged. For Crimson Road, that identity has been built somewhere quieter. Over the past two decades, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Trevor has transformed personal setbacks, heartbreak and relentless creativity into a body of work that exists entirely on its own terms. Unconcerned with trends or commercial expectations, Crimson Road has become a deeply personal outlet where powerful riffs meet messages of hope, re

Some records chase perfection. With Pulp is interested in what perfection removes. Brooklyn-based band Honey VHS built their latest EP around the moments modern production is often designed to erase: the movement between musicians, the unpredictability of a live performance, the rough edge of a vocal and the small imperfections that prove real people were in the room. Recorded largely through live full-band takes, With Pulp embraces texture over polish and connection over pre