Fresh Finds: Class Of 2025 – Aussie Acts To Add To Your Playlist

Steve Bell, Journalist

Steve Bell

Many, many moons ago Steve Bell was unassumingly writing a small fanzine for the inner-city Brisbane record store where he worked when on one otherwise normal day he was poached into the cutthroat world of street press, embarking on an eye-opening journey interviewing bands and banging on about music for the street press publication Time Off. It's an association that's now existed for well over 20 years - including a decade full-time as the print editor for Time Off/The Music - and one which still provides him with immense enjoyment and satisfaction, even though in recent times it's nestled alongside other music-related vocations such as co-owning a record store and indie label, radio broadcasting and navigating the podcast world.

Reviews / Album
Album Review: Custard - Come Back, All Is Forgiven
"Custard return with their first album in 16 years (sixth overall) and deliver a lesson on comebacks."
Features / Arts
Danny Bhoy Is Taking A Stance Against Data Botherers
"It's basically all about over-reliance on security and that constant, endless badgering to get our information."
Reviews / Arts
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl
"Brownstein proves insightful, witty, self-deprecating and fiercely intelligent, happily placing her neuroses and insecurities front-and-centre."
Features / Music
Paul Kelly And Kasey Chambers Invoke The Charter Of A Four-Way Appreciation Society
"I would have paid to be on this tour, the fact that I get paid for it is just wild."
Features / Music
Why Mac DeMarco Has Conceded To A New (Relatively) Professional Approach
"We can't really do the whole 'practice onstage' thing much anymore, it wouldn't go over well at the big shows we play."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Day Ravies, Thigh Master, Primitive Motion, Martyr Privates, The Goon Sax
"[Day Ravies] too establish a fine groove from the outset, their dreamy brand of shoegaze-infused pop-rock light but impenetrable."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Violent Soho, Palms, Budd
"A few short years ago, selling out The Zoo would have been an achievement for these kids, but these days it's like an intimate thank-you to fans"
Features / Music
John Grant Is Exploring The Lies And Liberties Of Love
"My lyrics are just about being a human and the experience of living on this planet, and I suppose it's about love quite a bit."
Features / Music
The Fall's Mark E Smith Is No Luddite But Don't Lend Him Your Technology
"I don't have a mobile phone so what I used to do is borrow people's, but I've noticed recently that people won't lend them anymore."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Mogwai - Central Belters
"Their rich, oft-instrumental soundscapes mine moods of anger and melancholy for the most part."
Features / Arts
On Chinese Food That Made His Balls Smell Like Pork For A Week
"If you've got food and it's tasty but it makes your nuts smell like Chinese food for two weeks and it's in a different continent - man, I'm going back!"
Features / Music
Sam Outlaw's Career Shows Just How Much Difference A Year Can Make
"It feels like since I was in Australia last that I've lived two or three lifetimes."
View More