What’s Up Down Under? The 12 Australian Bands Reshaping Indie Rock

Where they're from: Sydney
What they're like: Royal Headache's frantic guitar-pop is beyond rough, but there's a casual timelessness to the mix of lo-fi hooks (think Guided By Voices) and soul-damaged punk (think The Jam). Somehow, their self-titled 2012 debut bottled the frayed adrenaline of their dynamite live shows. The singer, known simply as Shogun, often goes shirtless on stage, breaking into Sam Cooke vocal curlicues with a weird anti-showmanship. Like the whole... band, he comes off like an average guy who stumbled onto a winning combination.

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: A sort of post-punk vacation for members of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race and Straightjacket Nation, Total Control nail not just the genre's steady rhythmic pulse but also splintered electronics and dead-eyed vocals. They're as capable of raw power as they are of skin-crawling tension, and their 2011 debut Henge Beat is split equally between both approaches. The spectre of sweaty hardcore looms large, always... there to offset the strictly mechanical with a dose of the unpredictable.

Where they're from: Adelaide/Melbourne
What they're like: Bitch Prefect write pop songs, but they're so dodgy and unpolished that they're almost punk. The Adelaide-via-Melbourne trio rack up awkward choruses and shoestring-thin melodies on their 2012 debut Bad Decisions, an album-length ode to doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Recorded with Jack Farley (Beaches), it plays like a slacker in-joke on first listen but develops unexpected staying power with repeated visits. Self-deprecation... has rarely been so charismatic — or catchy.

Where they're from: Sydney
What they're like: Sister band to Royal Headache, Bed Wettin' Bad Boys burst with a similar rough-hewn tunefulness. Here, the touchstones are Slade and the Replacements, and the anthems are beery and robust. This year's Ready for Boredom is a feast of layered guitars and neurotic lyrics, sung with an urgency that can border on panic. It's a pub record of a different sort: It's more introspective — an... all-night drink-a-thon for one.

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Much has been made about the fact that Hayley McKee and Amy Franz formed Super Wild Horses before they really knew how to play their instruments — guitar and drums, respectively. But their call-and-response shouts and essential rawness struck a chord. Where 2010's Fifteen piled scrappy garage-pop with enthusiastic vocal harmonies, this year's Crosswords introduces a mellower current and some classic country melancholy. The duo are... still noisy when they want to be, but it's all the more effective coming after the quieter bits.

Where they're from: Melbourne/New York
What they're like: Named for the mid '80s TV nuptials of Kylie Minogue's character on the Aussie soap Neighbours, Scott & Charlene's Wedding is the outlet for New York-based expat Craig Dermody. His tiny-run debut Para Vista Social Club was an instant cult hit, and soon earned a proper release through Queensland label Bedroom Suck. Spiking slacker guitar-pop with autobiographical tunes about dead-end jobs, Dermody found a global... audience mostly via word-of-mouth gushing. The upcoming second LP Any Port in a Storm is less jangly but just as down-to-earth, with Dermody's singing as rough and convincing as ever.

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Woollen Kits started off sounding pretty much just like mid-period Beat Happening, full of froggy baritone and primitive romance. But with the two albums Woollen Kits and Four Girls — released as bookends of 2012 — the trio graduated to something more universal. They embraced power-pop and Burger Records garage, with songs about falling asleep during class and (of course) pining hopelessly for that certain someone.... They even signed to Chicago label Trouble in Mind — launchpad for Mikal Cronin and Jacco Gardner — proof that their balance of lyrical naiveté and abundant hooks was just right.

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Taking cues from early Flying Nun, Milk Teddy fit right into Melbourne's growing jangle revival. 2012's long-gestating debut Zingers spun off on its own course, upping the flange effect and layering instruments into a gorgeous collage. Frontman Thomas Mendelovits shrugs off lyrics that feel like stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and the music follows a similar sort of dream logic. It's underground pop twisted and made unreliable, spiraling off... toward the horizon.

Where they're from: Brisbane
What they're like: The fact that they've got ties to labels like Siltbreeze, Fire and Bedroom Suck should confirm Blank Realm's indie cred. They're not cool in the traditional sense, but their weirdo pop songs are catnip for vinyl-thumbing misfits the world over. Take the single "Cleaning Up My Mess" from their third album Go Easy: It's romantic yet bratty ("Love, will you clean up my mess again"?) and... sloshes along for seven minutes, punctuated by casually brilliant guitar lines. Fans of Royal Trux and Dinosaur Jr. will feel right at home.

Where they're from: Sydney
What they're like: Committed students of shoegaze, The Laurels apply those lessons to psychedelic rock. Needless to say, their 2012 debut Plains is texturally mesmerising. But it's also packed with sneakily strong songwriting, to the point where you would relish the tunes even with all the surrealism stripped away. The real secret weapon is the Krautrock-y rhythm section. No wonder The Black Angels have taken them under their wing,... touring with them in Australia and booking them for Austin Psych Fest.

Where they're from: Perth
What they're like: Taco Leg play a shabby strain of post-punk that's custom-made for a cult audience. But for all of the trio's wobbly uncertainty, their songs are oddly infectious and share the same knack for simple vocal repetition as Eddy Current Suppression Ring, to whom they're often compared. The songs on their self-titled debut LP peter out after a minute or two, but not before a few choice... Indiana Jones references ("Raiders") and moral quandaries ("I Can't Decide"). Their songs often feel like a race to determine what will fall apart first: the vocals, the words or the music.

Where they're from: Melbourne
What they're like: Beaches began as a social outlet for five women who kept finding themselves at the same shows. Anchored by three guitarists, they dabble in an assortment of genres at their leisure: jangle, surf, Krautrock, drone or psych. Five years passed between their self-titled debut and this year's She Beats, giving the band plenty of time to deepen their unique interplay. They still excel at instrumentals, yet... now their pop songs kill too. When Michael Rother (Neu!) asks to play guitar on your record, you know you're doing something right.