Rhythms Magazine, Australia's Roots Music Magazine, recently held its annual poll where readers and critics voted for their favourite music in various categories.
These are the top 10 Australian albums as voted by the readers:
10. Charm of Finches - Marlinchen In The Snow
Charm of Finches are Melbourne-based sister duo Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes. They make haunting chamber folk full of beauty and candour for the famished soul. The duo say "We write contemporary folk songs inspired by our personal experiences of love, grief and nature."
Their fourth studio album, Marlinchen in the Snow, was released in April 2024.
Reviews:
..While this melodic indie folk sound is where the duo feels most at home and accomplished, for that very reason it also feels like the least interesting part of this record. It’s refined to such a brilliant sheen that it’s hard to see where it can go next. I’m more intrigued by the parts which show somewhat unfulfilled promise and offer a different direction in which to grow. https://belwoodmusic.com/2024/05/19/album-review-charm-of-finches-marlinchen-in-the-snow/
...a record of continued evolution, which doesn’t sound sexy as a marketing tool, and the accretion of small moves, which doesn’t sound like insurgency. But it is lush when it needs to be, poetic when it should be, and compelling when it wants to be, and those are subtle victories that arrive at something quite grand really.https://www.bernardzuel.net/post/charm-of-finches-marlinchen-in-the-snow-review
.. the album tackles themes of travel, loneliness, belonging and home with an added gelid sentiment creeping in from their winter setting. If you like your folk music to come with a gothic sheen and sibling harmonies, you’ll want to listen to this one. https://www.songwritingmagazine.co.uk/music/marlinchen-in-the-snow-charm-of-finches
https://www.charmoffinchesband.com/
https://charmoffinches.bandcamp.com/music
9. Minor Gold Way - To The Sun
Minor Gold is the Canadian–Australian folk-Americana duo of Tracy McNeil and Dan Parsons, whose luminous harmonies and finely-etched songs have drawn international acclaim. The pair first forged their sound while living and travelling in a van along Australia’s East Coast, crafting the songs that became their self-recorded debut, Minor Gold (2023). Steeped in Laurel Canyon-era country rock and intimate folk balladry, the album earned glowing comparisons to Simon & Garfunkel and Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings, and was widely praised in the roots music press.
Their follow-up, Way To The Sun (2025), was recorded in Glendale, California, with producer Dan Horne (Mapache, Cass McCombs, Circles Around The Sun) and drummer Austin Beede. Broader in scope yet just as emotionally resonant, it weaves pedal steel, layered guitars, and soaring harmonies into a sun-dappled, road-worn sound. The record debuted at #1 on the Americana radio “most added” chart in the U.S. and earned critical acclaim from UNCUT, Shindig!, and Americana UK.
With a sound rooted in 1960s–70s West Coast folk-rock but alive with modern spirit, Minor Gold tour extensively as a duo across Australia, North America, Europe, and the U.K.
8. Loretta Miller - Loretta
Loretta Miller is truly a daughter of Melbourne's rich music scene.
A musical chameleon who slips between genres with ease, Loretta first broke onto the Melbourne scene as a powerhouse vocalist come go-go dancer for nine piece soul group Clairy Browne and The Bangin Rackettes. After touring the world and playing alongside veteran acts like Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley and The Cat Empire, Loretta formed JAZZPARTY with long time musical partner Darcy McNulty. JAZZPARTY is part New Orleans style processional, part psychedelic cult dance party and is held together by their formidable front woman.
Beautifully blending worlds of alt country, indie Americana, 70’s tinged soul and Rock n’ Roll - Loretta Miller is the real deal. No stranger to adoring crowds, famous rooms, and hot stages, the indomitable front woman is stretching out and leading her own band for the first time.
7. Fiona Boyes & The Fortune Tellers Live At Bluesfest 2004
Australian guitar slinger Fiona Boyes plays sassy and soulful electric and acoustic blues and has earned nominations for Blues Music Awards for four years running.
The only Australian musician ever to be recognised by the American Blues Foundation (Memphis) ‘Blues Music Awards’, with 8 nominations, including 2019 ’Traditional Female Artist of the Year’ USA. Winner of International Blues Challenge (Memphis: solo/duo 2004). Performances featuring guitars, vocals and unique cigar-box instruments. International recording artist and touring musician.
LIVE AT BLUESFEST 2004 - Fiona Boyes & The Fortune Tellers, featuring Hubert Sumlin & Chris Wilson. An historic legacy recording marking 21 years of Fiona Boyes & The Fortune Tellers, on tour with legendary Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin and Australia's own roots music hero Chris Wilson.
6. Teskey Brothers - Live At The Hammersmith Apollo
The Teskey Brothers are an Australian blues rock band from Melbourne, named after the two brothers who formed the group in 2008: Josh Teskey (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Sam Teskey (lead guitar). In 2019, they signed with Glassnote Records and Ivy League Records. They have released three albums: Half Mile Harvest (2017), Run Home Slow (2019) and The Winding Way (2023).
On their latest release, recorded on an analogue 24-track tape machine over 3 special nights at London’s iconic Eventim Apollo, The Teskey Brothers showcase their most enigmatic set to date. Featuring never-before recorded live tracks, such as Forever Me and You and Man of The Universe, Live At The Hammersmith Apollo represents the culmination of years honing their craft on the road.
5. Halfway - The Styx
Halfway is an eight piece band based in Brisbane, Australia. Three of the members – John Busby, Elwin Hawtin and Chris Dale originally hail from Rockhampton, Central Queensland. After moving to Brisbane and recruiting the like-minded Ben Johnson (bass), Halfway was formed in 2000. Joining shortly after were Dublin born brothers Noel Fitzpatrick (pedal steel) and Liam Fitzpatrick (banjo/mandolin). The finishing touches to the lineup were added with the inclusion of ex-Go-Between John Willsteed (guitar) & Luke Peacock ‘The Bird’ (keys/guitar). Their debut LP “Farewell to the Fainthearted” was released in 2003 (Plus One) to critical acclaim.
Halfway’s ninth studio album, The Styx, digs deep into the places, and people, rarely visited in rock music.
These are songs set among the rivers, estuaries and massive out-tides of Central Queensland. The Styx isn’t the one of Greek mythology but the river near the fishing village Stanage Bay, a place of deep natural beauty and danger. The band’s John Busby spent time there as a child, camping out on fishing trips with his father.
The album is the first recorded by the band themselves, mixed by Mark Nevers (Calexico, Lambchop, and producer of the band’s The Golden Halfway Record and Rain Lover albums) at his South Carolina studio.
The Styx features the return to the fold of band co-founder Chris Dale after a six-year absence, and contributions from guests including Chris Abrahams (The Necks, Midnight Oil) and Adele Pickvance (The Go-Betweens).
4. Liz Stringer - The Second High
Melbourne based Liz Stringer has been a steadfast and captivating feature of the Australian musical landscape over a six album career. Venerated by her musical peers and devoted fanbase alike, Stringer’s world-class vocals, multi-instrumental prowess, notoriously powerful live performances and story-rich, genre-defying songs place her among the most important songwriters of her era.
Mirroring the scope and complexity of Stringer’s sensibilities and accomplishment as an artist, The Second High draws from Stringers’ wider influences of jazz, funk and soul, and takes her ability to dissect the minutiae of the human condition through song – and connect with her audience - to a new level. The album is redolent with motifs of self-actualisation, lessons learned, sharp and ever-relevant commentary on social issues, and a strong and consistent focus on justice and equality. Fueled by keys-driven grooves ranging from poignant grand piano lamentations (When You Met Me), the Rhodes-led jazz odyssey of On the Level, hip-hop flavoured keys brightening the bottom-heavy and deeply funky The Second High, to virtuosic keys that dance between strings and soaring multi-layered vocals in To Survive, Stringer's seventh studio album is a fresh and engaging ride to a destination yet uncharted, even by Stringer’s standards – thrilling, stark and transformative.
3. Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission - GoCome Back
Mick Thomas has some secret magic to his writing… he surely can write great songs that make you say “Why didn’t I think of that?” He writes about mates, ratbags, races, places, weddings, parties, funny stuff – anything – but they are really good stories and great songs.
Mick Thomas and his bands, notably ‘The Weddos’ or ‘The Roving Commission’ or MT himself are all something to behold.
GoComeBack is the full Roving Commission six piece line-up captured by an in form producer/engineer in a fine studio setting. The album cover itself is an elaborate production.
GoComeBack - it’s a pidgin Indonesian term for return journey.
Go is side one - it takes you away, leaves you in a far off place. You catch a bus at dawn, by a submerged island you hear distant voices, you marvel at how mundane a supposedly exotic place can be, and how exotic a functional entity needs to be. You catch up with a band who went a-touring and never came back, you get your nails done by someone who wishes they were far away.
ComeBack is side two - it tries to see beauty in the everyday. A tram ride through a divided city, some wild birds in the airport food hall, a sculpture by the river and a small child in a Vietnamese restaurant. Mick sits on a pier in an obscure seaside town and wonders how he got there while some artists try their bohemian best to pretend their domicile is anywhere but a work-a-day Melbourne suburb.
2. Paul Kelly - Seventy
Over forty years and across thirty albums, Paul Kelly has made himself unique among world songwriters by the sheer range and innovation of his work. With each song he writes, he feels like he’s starting anew – every one a puzzle to be solved, a mystery that can never quite be explained. Few songwriters find ways to keep that creative fever burning for as long and as brightly as Kelly.
The country of his birth, its emotional interior and geographical landscape, its heroes and villains, our hopes and failings, have been a constant in Kelly’s long list of Australian-set songs. From St Kilda to King’s Cross, Adelaide, Leaps and Bounds, Maralinga (Rainy Land), Randwick Bells, Sydney from a 747. From the bus ride through the cane in To Her Door to the childhood memory of Deeper Water. He has written about the country’s greatest cricketer, Bradman, and its most infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly, in Our Sunshine.
For a writer who insists his songs are not autobiography, Seventy (2025) might just be his most personal album yet. Having turned seventy in January 2024, there’s a sense of taking stock. The first words you hear on Seventy are, ‘Tell us a story.’ The last words you hear are, ‘Put another big log on the fire.’ And we’re back in the kellyverse of love, loss, legend, wit, poetry and tales tall and true.
“Feeling dry is the normal state for a songwriter,” Kelly says of the creative process. “Most days I don’t have a song or anywhere near a song. You do anything you can to break old habits, jamming with the band to find a different riff, playing a different instrument, putting the guitar in a different tuning. You have to keep turning up and keep trying, stay open. And write things down when they come into your head or otherwise they go out of your head.” Kelly’s willingness to experiment and work with collaborators including his long-time band has played an important role in keeping that creative fire flaming. His body of work includes live albums, film soundtracks, co-writes, production work and decades of touring, playing the kind of shows fans never forget.
At 70, Kelly remains creatively vital, his mission to keep creating, keep exploring, keep finding new ways to move the fingers, the music, the heart, the mind.
1. The Cruel Sea - Straight Into The Sun
Sydney indie rock band The Cruel Sea first formed in late 1987. Originally an instrumental band, they became more popular when fronted by vocalist Tex Perkins (also Beasts of Bourbon). For the majority of the band's tenure, the band has featured Jim Elliott on drums, Ken Gormly on bass guitar, Dan Rumour on guitar and James Cruickshank on guitar and keyboards. Between 1990 and 2001, the band released six studio albums – three of which (1991's This Is Not the Way Home, 1993's The Honeymoon Is Over and 1995's Three Legged Dog) were certified platinum by ARIA.
Straight Into The Sun is their first album release since 2002 and caps a stellar return to action for the four-time ARIA winners.
A few reviews:
As the band summons up a sexy hip-shaking swing on the title tune, Tex Perkins sings: “I’ve got a long list of things I should not have done/But now I know I’ve really only just begun.” And the album tingles with the excitement of a fresh beginning, from the easy-rolling country-blues of the second single Waste Your Time to the shimmering ’60s pop flavors of You Shine and the images of nature painted by the instrumentals Razor Back and Storm Bird. Straight Into The Sun captures the essence of what everyone loved about them in the first place, under the influence of ’60s surf music and atmospheric Western film soundtracks but always open to exploring different musical directions.
Drenched in soul and warm rhythms, Straight Into The Sun comes delivered with the Cruel Sea's signature wry smile. For longtime fans, Straight Into The Sun will excite, and for newcomers to the fold, the track is a strong entry point to the band's catalogue. abc.net
...this is a band that says who cares what you are supposed to be doing, just do this instead, this is what matters. That isn’t a straightforward “I don’t give a fuck” attitude – that’s stupid and lazy, and they’ve never been either – but rather “I’ll choose what to give a fuck about and it’s likely your suggestions won’t make the list”. You’ll find that mood immediately with the country surf How Far I’d Go: in the smooth slide of guitar opening the door for Tex Perkins’ unrolling vocals; in the way space beckons between the guitars of Danny Rumour and Matt Walker; and how the rhythm section of Jim Elliott and Ken Gormly (irreplaceable) steps only into a corner of that space. Perkins sings of shame and blame and there is a suggestion of wisdom gained, but enough vagueness about the direction – better or worse? – in the question of “just how far I’d go … for you”, to leave open possibilities. https://www.bernardzuel.net/post/the-cruel-sea-straight-into-the-sun-review
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