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NEW MUSIC ROUND-UP: Maple's Pet Dinosaur, Goldfinger, Karnivool, Pincer+, HAMMERS, SoSo, Sweet Pill + HEALTH
- Tiana Speter
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Well here we are: December 2025. It's been a year stacked full of so much amazing music, highs, lows and everything in between. But before The Soundcheck officially clocks off for the holidays, today we're bringing you a round-up of 8 x recent new tunes that have been turning our ears and heads of late.
Fresh off performing at Good Things Festival earlier this month, we've got recent songs out from Newcastle teen sensation Maple's Pet Dinosaur and Los Angeles punk icons Goldfinger. Flying the flag for brand new Aussie music, we're also honing in on the new singles from Karnivool, Pincer+, HAMMERS and SoSo. One of our fave new music crushes of the year, Sweet Pill, are back with a tasty new track, and industrial trio HEALTH have dropped a brand new clip off their album CONFLICT DLC to dive into.
As always, you can loop in via our official mixtape, available on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube here. But in the meantime, come spend some time with some killer recent new music!
Maple's Pet Dinosaur - chorus
I don't know about you, but when I was 15 I definitely wasn't writing viral songs and ticking off being the youngest performer at a massive travelling festival and then returning to school the following Monday. But then again, I wasn't Maple's Pet Dinosaur, aka the Newcastle teenager who catapulted into view with her DIY video for her debut track lego...and the rest has been short but insanely big history.
Snagging 6 million views and counting on TikTok and 1.1 million views on YouTube, lego also became the most-viewed Instagram Reel in history by an Australian-born artist; oh, and a guy called Fred Durst commented on the Insta clip as well and suggested they toured together too.
In the space of a few short months, Maple has released her follow-up single chorus; a relatable and infectious new jam that is, as Maple herself puts it, "an ode to a love story gone wrong". Dropping it just ahead of her performances at Good Things Festival earlier this month, it's safe to say this will not be the last we're hearing from this Newcastle dynamo.
Goldfinger - CHASING AMY
Another band you may have had the pleasure of catching live if you were at Good Things Festival earlier this month were none other than punk icons Goldfinger. While their influential status shaping ska and pop-punk back in the day is undeniable (cue me immediately going into a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater replay binge), the L.A group have also been steadily releasing new music along the way, including their most recent album, 2020's Never Look Back, and a ridiculously fun single FREAKING OUT A BIT that dropped earlier this year, with the latter boasting two additional fellow pop punk heavyweights, aka Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker.
But just before the group returned to Australian stages for the three festival dates and a headline sideshow in Melbourne in early December, Goldfinger went and busted out another new pearler via CHASING AMY; an infectious anthem that oozes with vibrant hooks, soaring melodies and crunchy riffs, instantly emerging as a song you'll want to sing along to loudly and proudly with the car windows down.
Described at the time of release by the band as "a personal anthem about love, time, and everything in-between", CHASING AMY is a buoyant note for Goldfinger to end the year on. Deftly striking a balance between the band's sonic roots and potent new territory, produced with the evergreen sparkle of frontman John Feldmann, CHASING AMY is nostalgia served with a compelling modern sheen...and here's hoping there's more where this came from!
Photo Credit: Courtney McAllister
Karnivool - Opal
It's been over 12 years since Perth icons Karnivool have released a new album, but as they say: absence makes the heart grow fonder. This is especially the case when it comes to the 'Vool, and yes, the wait is now officially over, with Karnivool recently confirming the release of their new album In Verses next year (due out February 6 via Cymatic Records/Sony Music), alongside a sublime new single Opal.
A vast and stirring journey that dabbles in cinematic melodies and orchestral swells, Opal also threads itself back through Karnivool's illustrious history, with the press material revealing that the track's riff was repurposed after first being recorded 20 years ago during the Themata sessions. As guitarist Drew Goddard explained upon its release: "Opal pulls together ideas from some of my earliest days writing with the band. The riff in the middle and end was actually the first thing I recorded in the Themata era, on a computer at my parents’ house. Twenty years later, it found its place here."
Joining earlier singles Drone and Aozora, Opal signposts something truly special lying in wait via the forthcoming In Verses, with the album set to burrow deep into themes of frustration, catharsis and a rediscovery of identity, accompanied by the rare magic that a band like Karnivool truly possess. A unique and magnetic force in progressive music, both at home and globally, prepare to fall in love all over again with Karnivool next February. But for the time being, come and immerse yourself in the wondrous universe that is Opal.
Pincer+ - e n d l e s s
Fresh off the release of their debut album Who Are You When No One's Around (out now via Greyscale Records and 1126 Records), Perth hardcore five-piece Pincer+ have cemented the hype that's been building around them since they erupted onto the scene back in 2022.
Flexing and testing their wares via two previous EPs, 2022's Hunting God Tapes Vol. 1: Violence and 2023's Hunting God Tapes Vol. 2: Romance, the group's first foray into full-length territory in 2025 lathers in distortion and caustic production while also delving into themes of isolation, guilt, anger and the eerie space that exists between feeling everything and nothing. Weaving nods to Deftones and plenty of genre-defiance throughout, it's also on track #6, e n d l e s s, that Pincer+ smash metalcore mayhem with lush, lilting choruses, closing with a gaze-y ambient glaze that drives its subject matter home with sharp subtlety.
"It's about losing control, pulling yourself apart, and trying to figure out who you are," the band said in their press material of the overarching album. "We found the title felt like a way to tie it all together - it's a question for us as much as anyone else, about facing the parts of yourself that only show up when no one's watching."
Aussie fans can next catch Pincer+ live in action in January, performing as part of Froth & Fury in Perth along with Polaris, Soulfly, In Hearts Wake and many more, and will also support Zuko on the East Coast in February.
Photo Credit: Nate Rose
HAMMERS - DEATH WOBBLES
After years of burning up stages and airwaves since solidifying their line-up in 2017, Gold Coast rockers HAMMERS have now finally announced the release of their long-awaited debut album, with DEATH WOBBLES set for release on January 23 (via Summerland Records).
A must for fans of the likes of Every Time I Die, He Is Legend, Alexisonfire and Stray From The Path, HAMMERS bring a mix of Aussie charm to post hardcore and alternative metal tropes, and their time spent honing and expanding their trademark sound has relentlessly glown up with each new single as they continue to step closer to their debut LP. Promising "riffs, hooks and neck-breakers aplenty", HAMMERS also accompanied the announcement of their upcoming new album with the record's title track; a song that merges the band's personal passions while also reflecting the very notion of "death wobbles" (a term for a violent and uncontrollable shaking of a vehicle, skateboard, surfboard and so on. If you know, you know).
DEATH HAMMERS (the single) gets a Turnstile-esque treatment from its accompanying music video, shot on location in the band's hometown. And, as one YouTube commenter astutely declared: "there might come a time where music videos that are shot in a bowl are no longer sick, but it sure as shit isn't today". DEATH WOBBLES joins previous singles Top Fun, Fucked Around & Found Out and Traps. And if you're in Northern NSW this weekend, you can catch HAMMERS supporting Cog in Byron Bay for their final show of the year. Get amongst it!
Photo Credit: Mega Media TV
SoSo - Something More
What's an independent band to do when the odds are stacked against you to get your music heard and noticed in an age of saturation, gate-keeping and game-playing? Well, if you're the Sydney-hailing pop punk quartet SoSo, you mount an ambitious campaign to reach #1 on the Australian charts so that people have to take notice. And with the release of their debut full-length So Much For Second Chances, the group emerged victorious with the #1 spot on the Australian Album Charts, #2 on the Vinyl Charts and #4 on the Album Charts.
Self-described with their tongues firmly in their cheeks as "offensively average", SoSo galvanised their pop punk wares with an underdog spirit on their maiden full-length, expanding their songwriting and execution to include pop vocals, samples, synths and full-bodied melodies. And off the back of the release of So Much For Second Chances, produced by Stevie Knight (Yours Truly, Stand Atlantic, Between You & Me), the band just recently also dropped a new Severance-themed music video for their track Something More.
A bouncy ode to the 9-to-5 drudgery along with the fact most working musicians themselves hold down "real" jobs outside of their creative pursuits, Something More also posits some hope for an escape. And with their hard-won ricochet to chart success, SoSo may just be able to hang up the office for good in 2026.
Photo Credit: Mitchell Wojcik
Sweet Pill - No Control
If you love dynamic alt-rock with a side of emo, math rock, punk and some indie edges, chances are you're already well versed with Philadelphia's Sweet Pill (if not, seriously stop reading this and go and binge all of their songs. I'll wait.)
Performing in Australia for the first time earlier this year as part of New Bloom Fest, the band have also been busy with other touring shenanigans as well as loading up in the studio behind the scenes, culminating in the announcement last week of their sophomore album Still There's A Glow, which will drop on March 13 via Hopeless Records. And to spice up the announce, the band also dropped the album's lead single No Control; a raw and rousing cut that glows with dynamic shifts, propulsive rhythms and the full-bodied might of vocalist Zayna Youssef as she details her own real-life experiences.
"I quite literally had no self control," Youssef shared in the single's press material. "This song is sort of my way to rock bottom. It is my fancy way of calling myself a pushover, unconfidence and ungrateful."
With a charismatic and ciggarette-laden accompanying music video, Sweet Pill's brand new chapter is officially in full swing, and Still There's A Glow is primed to rip us all a new one in the feels, and also lead us all willingly onto a sweaty dancefloor.
Photo Credit: Mynxii White
HEALTH - ANTIDOTE
Whether you class them as Industrial, "cum metal" or somewhere in between, L.A trio HEALTH undeniably are dialled into something unique and special with every new release.
Unleashing their sixth studio album CONFLICT DLC last week, one thing remains abundantly clear when it comes to HEALTH and their creative output: you can always expect the unexpected, and the band's stratosphere is insatiably welcoming to all walks of life, describing their own fanbase as a coalition of subcultures that spans memelords, heavy music diehards, the delightfully perverted and pop-culture obsessors.
Thematically, CONFLICT DLC is a dystopian nightmare dolled up with catharsis, hope and pummeling angst. Here, the industrial vibes run rampant, while synth-pop, atmospherics and gleeful brutality lie in wait at various turns. As lead singer Jake Duzsik perfectly put it in their press release of the new album: “It’s a strange potpourri. It's more fun, faster, heavier and more sad all at the same time, which has its own strange relationship to how life is now anyway… except the more fun part."
A maximalist triumph in existentialism that once again expands into exclusive remixes via the band's Soundcloud, the release of CONFLICT DLC was also armed with a brand new video for the single ANTIDOTE; and it's an anime-themed journey that closes out with a real-world gut punch (watch 'til the end!).
BY TIANA SPETER
