Ten Australian Heavy Bands You Need To Know

15 January 2025 | 4:31 pm | Mary Varvaris

Heavy music fans continue to show up for their favourite bands, buying tickets and merch and selling out shows and festivals. Here are ten Aussie heavy bands you need on your radar.

RedHook @ UNIFY Festival

RedHook @ UNIFY Festival (Source: Supplied)

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You hear it all the time: Australia has one of the best heavy music scenes in the world. And it’s true.

There’s significant appetite for heavier music Down Under – high demand led to an extra show for US alt-metal outfit Bad Omens on their upcoming Australian tour, tickets are selling fast for the Alexisonfire/Underoath doubleheader, and The Used are selling out shows in all cities for their upcoming Aussie tour.

Looking locally, Windwaker and Void Of Vision’s upcoming tours are looking like sellouts. Last year, Make Them Suffer and Alpha Wolf upped the ante and moved on up to iconic venues like the Forum and the Fortitude Music Hall. Parkway Drive and The Amity Affliction just sold out arenas nationwide and dominate in the US and Europe. They’ve passed the mantle to all the younger bands we see today.

Aside from tours, music festivals like Good Things and Knotfest, focused on specific niches of heavy metal, metalcore, alternative rock, punk, and hardcore, seem to have bucked the trend many festivals in Australia faced last year, bringing tens of thousands of metalheads to massive venues.

Some of the bands you’ll read about below even made it to the top 10 of the Australian Albums Chart last year. One of them took home an ARIA. It’s fair to say that heavy music is closer to the mainstream than ever despite it definitely not being everyone’s cup of tea.

But if you’re not at the shows or following the bands’ careers on social media, chances are you’ll have no idea just how healthy the scene is right now. This is during a cost-of-living crisis, fewer all-ages shows, less local music on the radio and editorial playlists, and difficulty obtaining government grants.

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With so much stacked against live music, from the increased costs of insurance, equipment, production, booking fees, and splitting payments between band members to venues closing and festivals going under, heavy music fans continue to show up.

They keep buying vinyl and yet another black band tee. They check out the support bands and go to their shows, too. They listen on Spotify. Most of all, they continue to shout about just how amazing Australian heavy music is.

By no means is this an exhaustive list of what’s going on in heavy music scenes across the country right now. You might recognise some of the names; you may not. They were chosen because each act brings something different to heavy music, whether that’s reviving nu-metal or embracing hyper-pop and hip-hop. This is a starting point – we hope you check out these bands, go to their shows, follow them on social media, and get involved in your local scene.

You won’t find a paragraph on Parkway or The Amity Affliction here. Instead, we ask you to recognise their impact and welcome the next generation of rockers. Here are ten Australian heavy bands you need to know.

SPEED

SPEED have made a name for themselves in hardcore with their community-minded tracks of empathy and compassion and their energetic shows (no barrier! Look after one another!). The band, born out of the ashes of Endless Heights, stars Jem Siow, his brother Aaron, and bandmates Josh Clayton, Dennis Vichidvongsa, and Kane Vardon.

SPEED honour the roots of hardcore while moving the sound forward, tackling subjects like marginalisation, critiques of the government, and finding love and loyalty through the Sydney hardcore punk scene. Listening to them and watching them perform, it’s little wonder why they took home the ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album last year.

RedHook

RedHook rock, dance, and keep heavy music fun. Led by charismatic singer (and music journalist) Emmy Mack, RedHook make a fascinating kind of music they’ve described as “screaming rap rock electro pop mutants.”

Their latest album, Mutation, revealed precisely why that was the right title. It blends pop-leaning metal with some heavy-AF guest vocals (check out Alpha Wolf on Cannibal) and additional special guests Vana and Holding Absence. Mutation reveals “new chapters of old stories,” with the band sounding more confident than ever as they jump from genre to genre and as Mack reckons with trauma.

Wayside

The sole alternative rock band on this list, Wayside stand out with their dreamy yet thumping take on melodic rock music. This is a band that opened for The Butterfly Effect, and it made perfect sense. They’re joining the likes of Basement and Balance & Composure – emo/alt-rock royalty – at New Bloom Festival in March. Again, they fit in perfectly.

In November 2023, they dropped their excellent second album, What Does Your Soul Look Like, a record that experimented with shoegaze, grunge and emo that was produced by the one and only Will Yip (Turnstile, Title Fight, Balance & Composure). With songs that are equally catchy and poignant, Wayside are a band to watch.

Yours Truly

Last year, Yours Truly returned with their long-awaited second album, Toxic, and proved just why they’ve been heralded as a band “reinventing” pop-punk. You can’t compare Yours Truly to the mall pop-punk that dominated the airwaves in the early 2000s. They possess a darker sound than Avril Lavigne or Fall Out Boy, with an edge that’s attracted collaborations with RedHook, You Me At Six vocalist Josh Franceschi and Aussie group Bloom (who you will see on this list).

It has been remarkable to watch the band return with a triumphant release—their best yet—after line-up changes, some devastating lows, and singer Mikaila Delgado pondering the future of Yours Truly in mid-2023.

Bloom

Last year, Sydney-based melodic hardcore band Bloom released their debut album, Maybe In Another Life, a concept album about “possibility.” The band’s most impressive, ambitious, and carefully curated project, Bloom take the record in all sorts of directions, embracing soft-spoken and atmospheric melodies and contrasting them against some seriously intense riffs.

In a ten-part story, Bloom examined “longing, self-indulgence, fantasy, manipulation, and despair through the eyes of a character constantly challenged by their reality.” Maybe In Another Life is heavy and tracks the band’s fullest sound to date. It’s melodic hardcore at its best: dark and pummelling pure emotion.

Future Static

Future Static know how to sound enormous. Their blend of crushing heaviness, theatre, singing and screams (courtesy of lead vocalist Amariah Cook and bassist/backing vocalist Kira Neil), and addictive progressive and melodic metal melodies have taken the Melbourne outfit to massive stages, opening for the likes of Electric Callboy and TesseracT.

On their debut album, Liminality, released in late 2023, Future Static crafted the “physical representation of friendship, teamwork, and our unconditional love for music.” One of the most exciting bands on the Australian live music circuit, they’re finally celebrating Liminality with local fans this month. You won’t want to miss out.

Ocean Grove

It’s fitting that Melbourne band Ocean Grove called their latest album ODDWORLD. Not only is that the name of their record label, but it accurately describes what can be heard on the album.

Comprising vocalist Dale Tanner, bassist/vocalist Twiggy Hunter, and drummer/producer Sam Bassal, Ocean Grove have long blended a unique mix of elements of nu-metal, hardcore, and alternative rock to craft their own singular sound. With ODDWORLD, the band have invited the listener into a world that is the band in their purest form.

Showcasing a new aggressive sound to complement their nu-metal sound, ODDWORLD is refreshingly fun. With the bouncing, abrasive riffs, dual vocals, and short runtime, Ocean Grove transport listeners back to the peak of nu-metal and do it fantastically well.

The Last Martyr

Also hailing from Melbourne, The Last Martyr’s music sits somewhere between nu-metal, electronica, trap, and alt-metal, making for an exciting time, no matter which track you land on.

The self-proclaimed “cyberpunk metalcore” band rage against tall poppy syndrome and the ability of humans to send the world towards apocalypse, with the music on their latest EP, Requiem, suitably visceral for their intense themes.

Wildheart

Heading to Brisbane, metal band Wildheart demand an end to discrimination and racial inequality, with the crushingly heavy down-tuned riffs and vicious vocals to match the seriousness of their messaging. Having performed at UNIFY and BIGSOUND and opened for Northlane, Stick To Your Guns, and Alpha Wolf, the group showcased everything they’ve learned so far on their ripping new album, their highly awaited second LP, Searching For Life Beyond Tragedy.

In a 2023 interview with The Music, vocalist Axel Best said of his goals as a songwriter: “I mean, I’d love to write songs about breakups and love. But if Indigenous deaths in custody are still happening, we’re going to keep writing about that. As long as our lands are being used for mining, we’re still going to write about it. Until those issues are solved, I think people still need to talk about it.”

And on Searching For Life Beyond Tragedy, they bring awareness to discrimination, social injustice, mental health, advocacy, and then some.

The Beautiful Monument

The Beautiful Monument are one of those bands that’s absolutely incredible live. They’re just as strong whether they’re playing in a dive bar or performing to 15,000 people, opening for Evanescence in arenas across the country. With engaging vocals, hard-hitting instrumentals, and vulnerable lyricism, The Beautiful Monument promise catharsis with their melancholic hard rock sound. The band currently have a string of great singles under their belts, so here’s hoping 2025 is the year of more new music.

Honourable Mentions:

Of course, there are so many bands we could list! Ten is probably the best amount, but don’t let that stop you from checking out some more new music.

Amyl And The Sniffers (punk), Polaris (metalcore), Reliqa (progressive metal), In Hearts Wake (metalcore), Aurateque (progressive metal), Southeast Desert Metal (metal), The Chats (punk), Mudrat (nu-metal, hip-hop), Windwaker (metalcore), Make Them Suffer (metalcore), Alpha Wolf (metalcore)