Adam Newling isn't used to beginning an album cycle buzzing and feeling positive about life.
When the Newcastle-based singer-songwriter started crafting his previous records Half Cut and Dangerous (2022) and Dorothy Painted Portraits (2023), there was always an underlying tension at play.
But as the cliché goes, love has a way of conquering all. And so it has for Newling.
With a pending marriage to his fiancée Rianna O'Connell in 2027, a house at Jesmond and a successful career in music as a producer, solo artist and with his reformed Sydney indie band Letters To Lions, life is finally stable.
It was with this newfound stability that Newling wrote and recorded his most impressive album to date, The Bloody Unknown.
"The record was very much written about my life and where I'm at the moment, and it was a funny moment going into this record, because I think for the first time I haven't been on drugs or been really cynical about where I'm at with the industry," Newling says.
"I sat down to write these songs and went, 'What do I actually write about?'
"Which was an even better thing because it gave me this opportunity to really think of what I'm grateful and happy about in life and all the turns in the road that's taken me to get to here.
"More than saying it's a happy record, I'd say it's just a record that I'm proud of, and in the record, I tried to get across the fact that I am proud of what I've accomplished and proud of where I'm at and where my life is."
The redemptive power of love is best displayed in The Bloody Unknown's opening and closing tracks, Barbiturate Pt 1 and Barbiturate Pt 2, where Newling references Rianna and sings, "I'm in trouble/ I'm hearing voices in my head, said you're not ready yet/ But that's when we met."
Then on the Bruce Springsteen-style folk-rocker God's Work, Newling sings, "I was blinded by the love, blinded by the trust/ Blinded by something bigger than us."
"I think it comes with age," the 32-year-old says of finding contentment.
"Previously I've been around people that I didn't necessarily know if I actually gelled with.
"I've also met my fiancée, and we've shaped a life together, the two of us, which, if you asked me five or 10 years ago, I never would have had that as the answer.
"I think it's just love and life and realising that I can create a life that is balanced and healthy and optimistic."
The Bloody Unknown is also about Newling's dreams for the future.
That's perfectly encapsulated in the single Life where he sings, "I want a slice of the suburbs, raising the young ones right/ You and I, me and you, and the younger years/ You and I in a perfect life."
Newling has always had a knack for melody. His sandpapered voice usually leads a chorus of energetic singalongs at live shows whenever he performs his most beloved tracks like Singing Blackbird and Sweetness.
On The Bloody Unknown, Newling has dialled up everything. The melodic hooks hit frequently, the production has greater polish, and Newling sounds more confident to drift away from his folk roots to dabble in rock and pop influences.
The record was mostly recorded at Newling's home studio in Jesmond, and he and producer Fletcher Matthews (Trophy Eyes, Dear Seattle) played all the instruments, barring the saxophone provided by brother-in-law Sean Gage.
"The last tour that I did, we watched a lot of live Springsteen performances," Newling says.
"Inherently, what I've always wanted to do with this project, although it is predominantly folk music, or what I consider to be folk music, is make a rock'n'roll record.
"This for me is getting that out of my system. From the dawn of Adam Newling as an artist or a concept, I always wanted to make at least one rock'n'roll record."
Given Newling's clear motivations about the songs on The Bloody Unknown, the title almost sounds like a misnomer.
However, the title was carefully chosen to remind Newling where he has come from.
The title refers to the song The Land of the Bloody Unknown by Townsville indie-folk band The Middle East.
"I listened to that [2011] album [I Want That You Are Always Happy] in high school, and it kind of got me into Australian folk music," he says.
"Over the years, whenever I felt a bit lost on the road and in the thick of it, listening to that song has been a grounding thing for me.
"It harks back to my roots and where my love for this kind of music came from, so I thought it was a fitting title to kind of pay homage to that song with this record."
Newling plans to take a break from touring for the rest of the year to focus on producing Port Macquarie artist and The Voice contestant Charlie O'Derry and Newcastle-based Tasmanian punk band Ekidna.
Not many bands benefited from the COVID lockdowns when the opportunities to play live were almost non-existent.
Yet, for once, Western Australia's isolation was an asset. It helped the state avoid the majority of the social distancing restrictions that plagued the eastern states and threatened to kill the live music industry.
Perth's live music scene was open for business and thriving, barring the initial months of the pandemic. It was in this climate that four friends - Ben Hodge (vocals, guitar), Sam Barrett-Lennard (drums), Tom King (lead guitar), and Regan Beazley (bass) - formed the indie-rock band Dice.
"All the nightclubs were closed, so our friends and everyone were going down to see live music at venues that you shouldn't be playing for your first couple of gigs," King says. "Our first headline ever was at the Rosemount [Hotel], which is like a 600-capacity room, and we probably got close to half filling it out, and most of it would have been all of our friends.
"Just having that opportunity to have a lot more eyes and ears on music, and in particular indie-rock music, definitely helped the scene thrive."
By the time restrictions had eased and national touring had resumed, Dice had refined their live show through constant playing in Perth and had released a series of singles.
This included their breakthrough 2021 track, Stop Sign, which drew influences from early Arctic Monkeys.
The national focus was also trained on the Perth scene thanks to Booster Seat hitmaker Spacey Jane, arguably Australia's biggest band of the COVID era.
"It definitely felt like we've been incubated in a fishbowl for a bit and then got dropped into the ocean when we did hit Australia," Beazley says.
"I remember that first weekend of shows touring nationally; it was a shock. We'd gone from playing to 150 people in Perth, and you got used to that and then went to playing to five people."
It didn't take long for the rest of the country to catch up.
Dice released their debut album Midnight Zoo in 2024, and last month they dropped the ambitious follow-up I Thought The Altitude Would Make It Worth The View, which peaked at No.1 on the ARIA Australian albums chart.
The wordy title was inspired by Arctic Monkeys' iconic debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
"As cliché as it sounds, it's about the journey, not the destination," King says.
"Sometimes you might get there and not be too stoked, but you've got to remember all these amazing steps you took to get there. And sometimes it is worth it, and sometimes you go, 'Wow, I worked really hard for this, and you get to soak it all up.'"
I Thought The Altitude Would Make It Worth The View was produced by 11-time Grammy-winning producer Joe Chiccarelli, whose extensive resume includes The Strokes' Angles, The White Stripes' Icky Thump, The Shins' Wincing The Night Way and several Morrissey albums.
"He helped us figure out what was important and what was not when it came to focusing on things," King says.
"In the studio before this album we'd argue between the four of us over one note for 15 minutes, and he sort of made us realise that in the scope of the whole record, that note doesn't really matter.
"It allowed us to really focus in on the vibe and how we wanted to translate what we wanted the song to sound like in the actual album."
The album also features a co-write with G-Flip on the single Loose Change, and Jay Watson from Tame Impala and Pond provided synths on Cooler.
Where's Jimmy frontman Hugh Westcott is fresh off the plane from France, but the excitement in his voice is palpable.
"I can't really believe it, to be honest, still," Westcott says. "It was crazy."
The Newcastle-based band's maiden foreign tour was the stuff of pure rock'n'roll dreams.
Across 20 days Westcott and bandmates, Nick Worrad (drums), James Pansini (bass guitar), and Jed Pratten (guitar) played 16 gigs in France and Spain, including four shows at the Binic Folks Blues Festival, which drew 30,000 punters to Binic-Étables-sur-Mer in Brittany over three days.
Binic's website said the band "come from Newcastle, a remote town two hours from Sydney, on the edge of the bush, where life revolves around a single pub..."
Despite the language barrier and the French having no clue what Westcott was singing about on VB (Victoria Is Better After Victoria Bitter), Where's Jimmy's AC/DC and Angels-style rock riffage required little translation.
Westcott's trademark energetic performances, complete with roundhouse kicks, all the while barefoot and bare-chested in footy shorts, captivated the French.
"The crowds, the people going to watch the music, they were just so into it," he says.
"They just get around it so much and support it all so much. We were just blown away."
Before Where's Jimmy's French tour, the band had rarely played shows for more than a couple of hundred people in pubs, except to play Zest Fest last October for 3000 people in their hometown of Orange.
The opportunity to play Binic Folks Blues Festival came after a chance encounter with the event organiser Ludovic Lorre when Where's Jimmy played a set at Melbourne's iconic pub venue The Tote last year.
Lorre was blown away by the primal rock energy.
"He just happened to be there watching Eddie Current Suppression Ring play a reunion gig," Westcott says.
"He turned up at the bar the next day with his Australian mates and saw us and said, 'You're coming to France' pretty much."
The French tour was also perfectly timed for Where's Jimmy.
On July 17 the band released their second EP, the five-track Staring At The Wall, which was produced by Frenzal Rhomb frontman Jay Whalley.
It followed their debut EP Paycheque Blues in 2024.
Staring At The Wall was also pressed on vinyl by French label Beast Records, who have previously released albums by Tex Perkins, King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard and Cash Savage and The Last Drinks.
It's a considerable step up in quality for Where's Jimmy, especially the hard-hitting title track, Hanging On and VB.
"We've had lots of people coming back, saying that they bought the record and that they've come back at another show to watch us to tell us that they've listened to it and that they love it and can't wait for the next one to come out," Westcott says.
"It was just awesome. We sold hundreds of vinyls."
Westcott says there are already offers and plans to return to Europe next year.
"We've been in touch with Beast Records since we left, so when we boys have a regroup, we'll have a chat with them and then we'll see," he says.
"But obviously, we definitely want to go again as soon as we can."
