Album review: Onefour’s debut Look At Me Now worth the six-year wait
Through its struggles and some headline-attracting moments, this Sydney hip-hop group has used music as a way to find something bigger and more positive for its members and their community.
Album reviews for week of June 21 2025:
HIP-HOP
Look At Me Now
Onefour
Onefour Records / The Orchard
Onefour’s debut album, Look At Me Now, has been six years in the making. That’s six years the Sydney hip-hop group has spent grinding and developing its artistic craft, while also navigating controversy and an ongoing tension with authorities – the latter of which has prevented the group from being able to freely travel and tour, like any other music group at such a formative point of its ascent to national attention. Onefour’s history with law enforcement is no secret; most notably, three members were incarcerated in 2018 following a violent brawl in NSW. Yet through the struggle and headline-attracting moments, the members turned to music as a way to find an avenue out of the streets; to find something bigger and more positive for themselves and those around them. This is precisely what makes Look At Me Now such a poignant listen. At this point in its career, Onefour has already garnered national and international acclaim as platinum-certified recording artists, and thanks to the 2023 Netflix documentary directed by Gabriel Gasparinatos, it certainly has the cultural cachet to boot. With its debut LP, it feels like the listener finally gets a proper introduction to the Samoan-Australian four-piece, which offers a diversity in sound and delivery far beyond what the reductive label of “drill rap” may propose.
A cinematic nature underscores much of the record: moments of introspection (Father’s Day, Blood In My Eyes) meet pop-rap fusion with a natural sense of confidence and clarity. Phone Call (featuring R&B artist Mabel) and Distant Strangers (featuring The Kid Laroi and Imogen Heap) offer two of the strongest crossover moments on the record, each of which demonstrates great contrast in tone and lyrical weight. The album still pays tribute to its drill beginnings; Gang Ties, Movie and Bricks & Mortar are three highlights, not just because of their features (British rappers Headie One, Abra Cadabra and K-Trap, respectively). These tracks exemplify Onefour’s wordplay, flow and the maturity that threads through the hard-hitting material. Throughout its 15 tracks, a clearer portrait of Onefour becomes evident. It hasn’t lost the snarl or the edge that first propelled the rappers to notoriety but it’s also a group that has taken the hard-learned lessons of the past into what its members are aiming to be a brighter future. Look At Me Now is not supposed to be a clean-cut presentation of the Mount Druitt collective; at times it feels battle-worn, defensive and hyper-aware of the climate this music is being released into. What makes Look At Me Now a memorable album is in its balance of that aforementioned snarl and well-honed creative vision. There’s a humility that comes with being given new chances after highly publicised setbacks, and Onefour shows here that it is ready to thrive with these opportunities, regardless of the obstacles that still need to be overcome – just watch.
Sosefina Fuamoli
JAZZ
Monastery
Max Alduca
Earshift Music
Max Alduca’s debut album is unusual and highly innovative, not merely orthodox compositions and solos, but rather a thoughtful exploration of sound. With Alduca’s strong musical vision underlying the work, the album’s title is significant, as there’s a feeling in the air that the star-studded quintet of musicians is a genuine community of like-minded souls, specially assembled to play Alduca’s seven compositions. The primary elements in his music are: a realisation that moments of stillness are necessary; an awareness of what’s happening in the avant-garde, and; a belief that collective improvisations should include a balanced mixture of written passages, free playing and melodic beauty. Often the time-feels are gently articulated, enabling ruminative solos to be played, particularly by Luke Sweeting (piano), Michael Avgenicos (tenor saxophone) and Alduca himself (double bass). In the rhythm section guitarist Hilary Geddes, without actually taking a conventional solo, contributes lovely background colours and exotic figures, while virtuosic drummer James Waples completes an impressive line-up.
Eric Myers
HYPERPOP
Bunky Becky Birthday Boy
Sleigh Bells
Mom + Pop
Fifteen years ago, Sleigh Bells arrived in a kinetic blur on their debut album, Treats. Derek Miller played metallic punky guitar riffs, but he had a bubblegum sensibility, while Alexis Krauss sang and chanted like a hyped-up cheerleader bouncing on a trampoline after chugging too much red cordial. How on earth could they keep it up? Well, they couldn’t. On the surface, the US duo’s sixth album retains the hyperpop traits they made their own back in the day. The difference is that in 2010 the lo-fi maximalist attack had a visceral excitement to it. Here it’s polished to a bright glare and too often sounds like any identikit bratty pop band. Bunky Pop is apparently an ode to Krauss’s late dog, but whether the pooch would have appreciated a chirpy song that crosses Toni Basil’s Mickey with Avril Lavigne’s Sk8r Boi, and what sounds like four different drum machines being randomly triggered every 10 seconds, is up for debate. This Summer badly wants to be a northern hemisphere summer anthem, with Ramones-meets-Runaways guitars and a serviceable hook built for car radios. Plenty of fizz; not enough thrills.
Barry Divola
FOLK/ROOTS
Ruin & Repair
The Audreys
Independent
Some 20 years after forming, and a decade since presenting new music, a new album from The Audreys comes as somewhat of a surprise, particularly after the band was beset with tragedy with the passing of co-founding member Tristan Goodall in 2022. The fact album No.5 is here at all is testament to the tenacity of a band that was once at the top of the folk/roots tree in Australia. Ruin & Repair, then, while coming across a little tentatively in places, plays out true to its name; indeed, the band has been collectively ruined but here, via this music, it’s repairing. Opener I Remember Everything melds palpable feelings of both lamentation and joy, and shows immediately that the band hasn’t lost anything while away from regular rotation, while the razor-sharp guitar-roots-noir of Seen the Last of You, the pop-esque To Want To Be Loved, and the simple and sparse Sober — with its simple and evocative imagery (”I like you better when you’re sober / Life was like a carnival,” sings Taasha Coates) — play in the band’s favour while displaying an enviable versatility within the vast roots umbrella. Secondhand Boots and the eyebrow-raising whimsy of Ships Song fail to hit the mark but, ultimately, this is a decent return effort by an Australian favourite.
Samuel J. Fell
ELECTRONIC
F..k U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol But Ur Not!!
Skrillex
Warner
Once synonymous with the eardrum-shattering dubstep sound that helped power the EDM boom, Skrillex has adeptly moved with the times; nine Grammys attests to that. Whether teaming with Diplo to form Jack U or linking with German producer Boyz Noize as Dog Blood, producing for K-pop artists or dropping collaborations with Justin Bieber, Sonny Moore has crossed over to flirt with pop and hip-hop sounds, but it’s on the bass-heavy electronic tip where he remains most potent. On his fourth studio album, Skrillex delivers a thundering mash-up of dubstep, trap and drum’n’bass sounds. The pace throughout this continuous mix is frenetic, and there’s simply so much crammed into the album’s 46-minute run time that it’s difficult to keep up. This mishmash lacks cohesion – perhaps understandable given some of these songs were produced over 10 years ago. A stacked collaborator roster abounds, but most of the 34 tracks are so short it’s challenging for their contributions to shine through. The booming Zeet Noise shows the best of Skrillex, as does Morja Kaiju VIP, with its shuddering bass and stuttered production, but the playful voiceovers peppered throughout quickly prove irritating.
Tim McNamara
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