Ecca VandalIt is a general truth that, in every heavy music scene (past and present), there are women, trans, and queer people doing incredible work. A lot of the time, this work is not noticed or remembered.
(Few people, for example, know that one of the earliest pioneers of the grunge genre was actually a mixed-race woman named Tina Bell.)
So, for the past seven years, I’ve been making my own personal playlists of new music by women, trans, and non-binary artists. Lately, I’ve been focusing on new heavy music especially – metal, hardcore, drum’n’bass, noise, hip hop.
While a lot of people in these cultures can name one or two acts led by women, trans, or non-binary people, it’s rare that people are actually aware of just how many amazing songs and artists are out there.
To give you an idea, here’s 30 of the best songs released in the last six months or so. (Some of it came out in the last weeks of 2025.) There’s everything from extreme metal and breakbeat to noise rock and hyperpop.
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Included are notes on every song – who made it, why it’s rad, where it’s from. Believe it or not, most of it actually just comes from local scenes in so-called Australia.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, too. If it wasn’t for a bunch of helpful friends, I wouldn’t even have known about half the music on this list.
Have a read. Have a listen. Explore. There’s so much more out there than any of us know!
NOTE: This list has been structured in order of ‘what would make a sick playlist’, as opposed to any order of preference or quality. The last song is just as awesome as the first, I promise.
Unverkalt – Oath Ov Prometheus
Location: Athens, Greece
Scabrous black metal riffing and near-indecipherable yowls and screeches — operating in perfect concert with yearning melody and overwhelming emotion. Hard to describe, easy to feel.
Ennaria – UGLY
Location: Gadigal/Sydney, Australia
Like the best hyperpop, a blistering combo of punishing noise fracture and high-energy sugar synthetics. Through the electronica chaos, real emotion hits – “I give you my heart, you tell me it’s ugly”.
YUNHWAY – Go Low
Location: Seoul, South Korea
A crushing half-step reminder that South Korean hip hop goes hard. At 1:51, it wastes no time throwing down, taking names, and dropping a simple killer hook.
nightlight – HEAVEN//BELOW
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
A metal-pop-electro hybrid that convulses and spirals in all the right ways – a giddy thrill pitched halfway between a sugar rush and a punch to the guts.
Nervosa – Ghost Notes
Location: São Paulo, Brasil
Thrash metal par excellence. The guitars crunch, chug, crush, and go weedly-deedly. The vocals are guttural and cathartic. There’s even a cool extended instrumental break with a whisper of acoustic guitar. Practically perfect in every way.
Ecca Vandal – Eyes Shut
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
A tightly-wound, raw-throated pummelling that is equally desperate and euphoric. The scathing catharsis of screaming into the sky that you are alive and will not be stopped.
Loose Content – Big Bright Burning Sun
Location: Cavvanbah/Byron Bay, Australia
Rides the kind of bass groove that seems custom-tooled to soundtrack the best kinds of bad decisions. Playing in a movie when the protagonist decides to set their landlord’s car on fire.
Future Palace – Deep Blue
Location: Berlin, Germany
A song about being abandoned to the crushing depths of our world’s unforgiving oceans. A type of fearful outcry that feels somehow too familiar in today’s world.
Craning – Start Pregnant
Location: Magandjin/Brisbane, Australia
Reverb-heavy, bass-forward, and as sporadically explosive as it is eerily disquieted. Like winning a life-or-death wrestling match in a disused sewer pipeline.
ROSA FAENSKAP – Den Svake Mannen
Location: Oslo, Norway
A spidery blend of post hardcore and black metal tied to a single cascading guitar line. Like raw symphonic despair.
DOWNGIRL – CPR
Location: Gadigal/Sydney, Australia
An excellent example of the joys of truly great punk guitar tone. Vocals crash over the song like a herd of galloping horses.
CLT DRP – WHAT IS SHE FOR?
Location: Brighton, England
Bellowed frustration over raw synth and live drums. A song to dance and punch the air to — that would also happen to delightfully annoy lots of really annoying people.
ViperSnatch – Sweet Melodies
Location: Darumbal Country/Rockhampton, Australia
The type of seething heavy guitars that roll over a listener like waves, underpinning a swirling vocal hook. A bit like My Bloody Valentine if they just wanted to tell you that you’d been a real dickhead.
JIALING – BRING IT BACK UP
Location: Baltimore, United States of America
The sunshine-flecked rave flavours of vintage breakbeat and flickers of 303-style acid synths orbiting a bass groove to cave in skulls. Pure loopy power.
Cry Club – High Voltage Anxiety
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
Few sounds capture the almost comical disgust so many of us feel with the inane horrors of the modern world like one of Cry Club’s prime electro-punk bangers in full flight.
Brazen Barbie – Say What?
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
A massive hip hop groove that will not be denied. A soundtrack for moving with absolute certainty – apex predator unrivalled.
Lens & Lady Ice – CARNAGE
Location: England
Hectic hi-hats, scattered vocal loops, and punching bass lines support a frenetic rap flow. Bracing and unbalancing cries for violence.
Skezm & Kristol Pisstol – Beneath A Clown Of Anguish
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
Like a razor-sharp metal band that has gotten so royally nettled as to forego any prior allegiance to coherence or logic. Pure chaotic heavy sound fantasia. (Also, best song title in the whole article. No contest.)
Lily Of The Valley – Hell Is A Relief
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
Slow. Weighty. Colossal. Heavy in the purest sense of the word – but with a second-half transformation that savages both the heart and the guts.
Defences – Metamorphosis
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Melody-rich metalcore that surges and soars with every line. A melancholic rager to belt out in the car in the rain.
PINKNOISE & Wind Walkers – RAIN
Location: United States of America
A modern metalcore collab showcasing the unique power of PINKNOISE’s multitextured vocals – stretching from plaintive pop melodies to bellowing frustrated despair. Heck of a chorus, too.
Miss Kaninna – MOB TIES
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
A simmering, growling statement of identity and intent. Nothing heavier than an Indigenous woman stating the truths of the world.
Molly Rocket – Another Year
Location: Tarndanya/Adelaide, Australia
A bittersweet rush of heavy pop rock that recalls the double-edged melodic spikes of Frenzal Rhomb, Violent Soho, and Spiderbait in all the right ways.
WAAX – Ur A Rat
Location: Magandjin/Brisbane, Australia
The type of nursery-rhyme/schoolyard-chant simplicity that takes a pissed-off rock song from good to great. Something to yell when you get your sweet, sweet revenge on those who’ve wronged you. (You know the ones.)
ASTERISM – Blink Of Ray
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
Progressive metal with excellent songwriting and practically no arsing about. ASTERISM’s rippling song structures are forever changing – but never lose sight of the heart or muscle of heavy metal’s truest self.
DeathbyRomy – Manic Dream
Location: Los Angeles, United States of America
Mangled synth and guitar noise commanded by one of the iconic voices of modern aggressive music. Like many DeathbyRomy songs, it’s a rabid yearning for both destruction and salvation.
The Warning – Kerosene
Location: Monterrey, Mexico
A song for an open highway and a permissive speed limit. The dangerously tantalising feeling of almost losing control of a vehicle going just a little too fast.
Private Wives – Blood In The Water
Location: Woolyungah/Wollongong, Australia
Killer riot grrl-flavoured rebellion that manages to feel snotty, intellectual, disaffected, and cool as heck, all at once.
Goon Girls – Parking Inspectors
Location: Ngambri & Ngunnawal Country/Canberra, Australia
A 90-second hardcore song with a Guy Ritchie sample and a vocal performance that would strip paint, Parking Inspectors is just another demonstration of the pure undiluted radness of Goon Girls.
Future Static – There’s Nowhere Else To Go
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
One of the best metal bands in so-called Australia. Anthemic metalcore with a killer breakdown, a range of stellar vocal showcases, and a subtle strain of prog-metal riffery.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
