The Goon Sax are James Harrison, Louis Forster and Riley Jones, from Brisbane, Australia. Still in high school when they made their first album Up To Anything in 2016, their brand of awkwardly transcendent teenage guitar pop took them into end of year lists for BBC6, Billboard and Rough Trade, and earned them raves from the Guardian, Pitchfork, Spin, Uncut, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. According to Metacritic, Up To Anything was the 8th best-reviewed debut album anywhere in the world in 2016.

We're Not Talking shows how much can change between the ages of 17 and 19. It's a record that takes the enthusiasms of youth and twists them into darker, more sophisticated shapes. Relationships are now laced with hesitation, remorse, misunderstanding and ultimately compassion.

Strings, horns, even castanets sneak their way onto the album, but We're Not Talking isn't glossy throwaway pop. Sounds stick out at surprising angles, cow-bells become lead instruments and brief home-recorded fragments appear unexpectedly. This is a record made by restless artists, defying expectations as if hardly noticing.

Release: September 14th, 2018, Chapter Music
​Words: Chapter Music

Legendary Australian punk band Little Ugly Girls formed in Hobart, Tasmania in the very early 90s, but have never released a record until now. This new self-titled set is officially their debut album, and features recordings spanning more than 20 years, including new sessions to finish off songs first tracked in the late 90s, which were left stranded on a damaged hard drive for two decades.

The band formed around fiery vocalist Linda Johnston, whose high-kicking stage antics make her one of Australia's most electrifying frontpeople, alongside her guitar demon brother Dannie "Bean" Johnston and drummer Brent "Sloth" Punshon. After moving to Melbourne in the mid 90s, the band settled on their classic lineup with the addition of rock-solid bassist Mindy Mapp (previously of another cult 90s band, Brisbane's much-loved Fur).

Little Ugly Girls played with the likes of Bikini Kill (after Sloth organised for them to make a detour to Hobart on their first Australian tour), Fugazi, Babes In Toyland, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and once memorably headlined over the White Stripes in Melbourne. But their only recordings released to date include a handful of 90s cassettes (some of them now archived at the Bandcamp page of Hobart label Goulburn Street Records) and one three track CD-R.

Now nearly 30 years since they formed, the debut album by Little Ugly Girlsshows them at their towering best - fierce and inspiring, with Linda's scarifying lyrics and impassioned delivery set to a huge wall of taut punk noise. It has been a long time coming, but it's as good as you could have dreamed.

Release: August 3rd, 2018, Chapter Records
Words: Chapter Records

IDLES self-released their debut album Brutalism last year. The Austin American-Statesman described their appearance at this year's SXSW as "May be the best punk show of its kind I’ve ever witnessed...felt like experiencing something people will be talking about for years to come."

The bands' second album Joy as an Act of Resistance bluntly addresses everything from toxic masculinity, immigration, racism, nationalism and more. The band are able to channel those weighty subjects though pure positivity and even biting humor. About the band, Stereogum have said, “IDLES seem to be the sort of band who transcend corniness by virtue of conviction and intensity. In their hands, clichés are more like blunt weapons.”

Produced by Space and mixed by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay (Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kate Bush), the album takes aim at everything from nationalism and immigration to class inequality - all while maintaining a visceral, infectious positivity. Singer Joe Talbot summarises: “This album is an attempt to be vulnerable to our audience and to encourage vulnerability; a brave naked smile in this shitty new world. We have stripped back the songs and lyrics to our bare flesh to allow each other to breathe, to celebrate our differences, and act as an ode to communities and the individuals that forge them. Because without our community, we’d be nothing.” 

Release: Partisan Records/Pod, August 31st, 2018
Words: Inertia Music