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.

Features / Music
The Skeletones
Bare Bones
"We probably went to Sydney a little early I suppose because we’d just developed a really good following in Brisbane, but we weren’t able to be put into a box like a lot of other bands at the time were."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Sigur Ros - Kveikur
Not only is it an interesting standalone piece with a grating industrial opening, its vocal mirages, scatty beat and haunting synth ebbs combine all the elements that make this now three-piece still worthy of our attention.
Reviews / Live
The Red Paintings, Pic by Freya Lamont
Live Review: The Red Paintings, Love Like Hate
TRP are seriously far too underrated as technically intricate players and as an encompassing live show.
Reviews / Album
Album Review: The Red Paintings - The Revolution Is Never Coming
McSweeney has a multitude of messages to relay and fulfils his mission in displaying the full gamut of human flaws and sins, all presented here in sonically sublime, reckless and reigning chaos.
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Seasick Steve - Hubcap Music
Just about every instrument is thrown into mix for show-stopping finale Coast Is Clear, horns blasting and guns blazing no doubt, and the best element of all is hearing Steve’s natural singing voice stretch above his derisive drawl.
Features / Music
Building His Own House
“I think dance music and club nights are in their best form when there is no sheen. I’m not really making a conscious choice to look the way I do.”
Features / Music
To Eternity
“We haven’t done one of these big tours for a few years now, I’m loving it. I really enjoy that relationship with people and it’s easier in these smaller places."
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Little Green Cars - Absolute Zero
O’Rourke offers another bright facet to turn to amid the pastoral guitar meanderings and sparse beats.
Reviews / Live
Live Review: The Rubens, Oh Mercy, Walk The Moon, Mt Warning
Much foot stomping and chanting gets the lads back out for the evocative Never Be The Same, and the inevitable show-closer My Gun reinforces an earlier hunch that these boys are more than just the flavour of the month.
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Killswitch Engage - Disarm The Descent
There’s even room for a more indulgent, emotive pummel-bag piece Always, allowing Dutkiewicz to dig deep amid some shredding guitar and sweet acoustic.
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Phoenix - Bankrupt!
One never quite knows which tack these guys will take, despite a comfortable feeling that you think you do. Complacency, in our case, is bliss.
Reviews / Album
Album Review: Electric Horse - Venomous
It’s heavy, it harks back to things we’ve heard before, but Venomous houses some solid production and a natural flair for structure that makes this so much more than a two-dimensional heavy release.
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