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

Carley Hall, Journalist

Carley Hall

Carley Hall is a Gold Coast-based writer who loves spinning a good yarn. She’s worked in print news rooms for more than a decade and now juggles young family life with a busy career in research communication, promoting all types of science from the dire and necessary to the weird and wonderful.

When she’s not doing all of the above, she’s dancing around her living room trying to brainwash her kids into liking her taste in music or getting out to see some gigs. Carley likes the heavy stuff most, but if it’s got hooky melodies, clever lyrics or off-kilter beats nothing is off limits.

Reviews / Album
Album Review: Hands Like Houses - Dissonants
"Throughout all there is more optimism than cynicism."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Driven Fear - Freethinker
"Fans can once again relive the band's chaotic shows through their speakers."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Nathan Hawes - I Wasn't There
"Despite being only fresh out of high school, the NSW youngster has perspective and a sensitive approach to songwriting"
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Ecca Vandal - End Of Time
"...expectations are high for End Of Time, but she delivers in spades."
Features / Music
The Living Character And The Sublime Behind The Music
"The challenge is to write lyrics to put a face to a body that makes the ambiguities in a space to read between the lines."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Holy Holy, Olympia, The Franklin Electric
"Breathtaking doesn’t even begin to cover it."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: St Lucia - Matter
"Bright and bold synth ditties and the brassy pipes of brainchild Jean-Philip Grobler."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: The Mute Gods - Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me
"[They] let their expertise do the talking in guitar and motif-laden tracks."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Cage The Elephant - Tell Me I'm Pretty
"Clearly the same dandy, psychedelic fuzz that ran rife on its predecessor still floats their boats."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Wage War - Blueprints
"The boys are perfectionists making fans wait five years since their inception for something solid."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: The Vamps - Wake Up
"One-dimensional at best sums up Wake Up."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Bush Gothic - The Natural Selection Australia Songbook
"A three-piece that weave magic around tales of our early settlers and their grim stories."