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![\"Stand](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2db24da16ec1fde0b9be447656d17ef3117f1421.jpeg\")
Stand Atlantic\u2019s new album Godbreath crackles with energy.<\/p>\n
Stand Atlantic, Godbreath<\/p>\n
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t usually come to Stand Atlantic expecting heartwarming fare. On their previous records, the Sydney alt-rock band, led by the magnetic Bonnie Fraser, excavated relationship breakdowns (2024\u2019s Was Here) and attempted to bottle the suffocating anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic on 2022\u2019s f.e.a.r. (the opening track was called Doomsday, to give you an idea).<\/p>\n
So what happens when Stand Atlantic find happiness? Great things, it turns out. After dealing with a bout of writer\u2019s block following Was Here, Fraser broke through the fog and wrote Favourite Flavour about the blissful start of a new relationship. Godbreath, the band\u2019s fifth album, unfolded soon after, with the band once again linking up with longtime producer Stevie Knight.<\/p>\n
![\"Sydney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2ebb8fe071af83c60fa6655187a049db02eae62e.jpeg\")
Sydney band Stand Atlantic, featuring Bonnie Fraser, David Potter, Miki Rich and Jonno Panichi.Nikki Haney<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t mistake happiness for toothlessness: Godbreath crackles with energy across its 11 tracks, with David Potter\u2019s guitars and Jonno Panichi\u2019s drums as potent and locked in as ever (see the wailing guitar solo on standout NEXT2U, or the crunching breakdowns on d.L.M.A. and SO COOL). After avoiding love songs for years, Fraser carves some beauties in Velcro and NEXT2U, finding a new vehicle for her mighty vocals.<\/p>\n
Edge of Vegas, another highlight, is a moment of pause and clarity, as Fraser reflects on a life lived as a frayed nerve ending, always braced for pain. But for the first time, Fraser and Godbreath put that feeling in the rearview. Jules LeFevre<\/p>\n
![\"Sampa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/8a8926d4aae8a76bdf2caa3e63901e0afed03b88.jpeg\")
Sampa the Great merges past, present and future on Nu Zamrock. <\/p>\n
Sampa the Great, Nu Zamrock<\/p>\n
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrica is the greatest ghostwriter of all time,\u201d says Sampa the Great in the press notes for Nu Zamrock, a statement which succinctly acts as a thesis for her new album.<\/p>\n
The record opens with a recorded conversation between the Zambian-born, Botswana-raised artist and her blood uncle George Kunda (aka Groovy Joe), a founding member of Witch, a band which spearheaded the 1970s Zamrock movement. As Sampa describes it on the track, the movement was defined by the ways in which it injected historically Western genres \u2013 such as psychedelic and garage rock \u2013 with a Zambian sonic identity. \u201cYou were among the first to do that,\u201d the ARIA Award-winner says to her uncle. \u201cThat\u2019s the creating of a genre.\u201d<\/p>\n
So follows an album that merges past, present, and future to create a kaleidoscopic tapestry of sound and identity; it is shaped by legacy but creates something unequivocally new. Canary hums with explosive, futuristic production as Sampa spits lines like: \u201cLast time I checked, I got the needle and the thread, weave that shit together.\u201d Location, another standout, boasts an intoxicatingly ragged drumbeat while eviscerating the West\u2019s artistic exploitation of the African continent.<\/p>\n
Throughout Nu Zamrock \u2013 which also features appearances from the Melbourne-based angelic chanteuse Mwanje Tembo and Aussie pop luminary Sia \u2013 Sampa the Great drips with charisma, facilitating rapture and revitalisation. \u201cWhat do I do?\u201d she asks herself on the album\u2019s closing track I Can Love \u2013 but she already knows the answer: \u201cI will renew.\u201d Emily Wilson<\/p>\n
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