Release Roundup: Mammalien, Avon Dads, Frog Power, Velveteen, Byllie-Jean, The Chills, Liam Finn + More

Here we are back safe and sound in our Tāmaki Makaurau UTR HQ, following last weekend's sonic sojourn to Port Noise festival in Ōhinehou Lyttelton. Returning to our regular Friday schedule, this week's batch of new / recent Aotearoa release highlights includes Mammalien, Avon Dads, frog power, Velveteen, Threat.Meet.Protocol, Byllie-jean, The Chills, Liam Finn, Paul Cathro, Sola Rosa and Mim Jensen.

Are you an Aotearoa artist / imprint releasing something new soon? Let us know! Send your info including links to editor@undertheradar.co.nz.

Ethan Buckler of King Kong / Slint once accurately sang, "Life exists in outer space / Earth for example." Led by the multi-talented Joshua Worthington-Church (Princess Chelsea, Exploding Rainbow Orchestra), Mammalien's 'I Don't Want to Live on This Planet Anymore' dreams of a new personal identity undefined by the omnipresent follies of humanity. The hugely relatable song's space-rock sentiment is hammered home by tumbling catchy melodies, affable delivery and DIY sci-fi visuals "shot and edited by Mammalien (with help from Vicky Zhu)." Smash that play button and make a wish for live shows. "Think if Cat Stevens was a cynic, or if the Monkees read a newspaper"!

Finally encapsulating that feeling when, "We want a $10 Countdown voucher, and the only thing in our way is that wretched online survey", 'Straightlining' is a new audio-visual combo from Canterbury's Avon Dads, the latest ripper release from Melted Ice Cream. Label boss Brian Feary might have blown the whole year's budget making the singalong jangle rock anthem's accompanying clip, a non-stop barrage of head-spinning options and web cam portraiture. You may find yourself "very satisfied" hitting play on 'Straightlining' plus recent road rager 'M.T.O. (Minor Traffic Offences)'.

I'm absolutely certain frog power's new album the lords ass (and country music) was playing at Space Academy in Ōtautahi last Friday evening when I was eating pizza, two days before it officially launched online. World class DIY outsider avant-punk-pop-psyche-goth-insert your own genre here. Tunes that should be taking home the Tūī for Best Rock Artist 2025, but instead we'll most likely get something dreadful. The thirteen track collection bundles together YouTube-only hits drip-fed to fans over the past six months. At last officially download and yowl along with 'tomb of the unknown hater', 'juggalo', 'saint xtina', 'fuck a chutney eater' and lots more.

Rightly hyped up by Ōtautahi bedroom-pop star Pickle Darling, Velveteen is the alt-rock / post-punk project of songwriter Jai Tudor-Oakley, the latest recruit to Winegum Records. Summoning a squalling shoegazey emotiveness reminding these ears a bit of Tāmaki's Emmanuelle — the copy for Velveteen's just announced album Heavy Machinery cites "The Smashing Pumpkins, Jimmy Eat World, Shihad and The Garden" amongst the record's reference points — new single 'Saturday Night in Vegas' feels assured in its snarling / soaring scope, swerving into frantic breakbeats that should get gig-goers thrashing. About his latest song: “A guy started talking to me at a bar in Auckland. He asked if I played music and if he could hear it. I played him my first single ever ‘Streamline’ and told me it sounded like shit. But I mean…fuck that guy. I wrote that song when I was like 15 or 16. I love it. It was like the first actually good song that I wrote that I was proud of. I was so pissed off and had to vent in some way and it definitely worked. I'm over it, but it's such a crazy thing to look back on".

Champions of Tauranga's noisy underground (or should we say under... bridge?), Threat.Meet.Protocol unleashed a motherlode of super scuzzy, agit-cyber-punk anthems barely contained within their new self-titled album — engineered / produced / mixed by Evan Pope. Rage-fuelled lead single '#Cancelled' finds then reuniting with stop motion animator Videos Mosconi on a beautifully realised, carnivalesque DIY nightmare-scape. "Please listen! We are not aloof or cool. But we do really appreciate your support over the years, this month even marks the 13th year since Stefan and I first formed TMP in his mum's basement. So we would love to hear your feedback as we are immensely proud of this album and hope you will like it as much as we do".

Byllie-jean returns with her first official solo release since 2024's stunning debut Filter EP — bass-booming, all te reo new single ‘Hinekoukou’ was prompted by regular visits from a ruru. "Hinekoukou was on my mind and as we spoke I realised that, despite the world’s obsession with image and our penchant for the artificial, she lives in the dark and sees everything".

Released by Fire Records late last week, Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs is a project spearheaded by Dunedin legend Martin Phillipps of The Chills before he passed away last year — "a dedicated reimagining of his earlier unreleased songs", featuring contributions from a stellar cast including Julia Deans, Elroy Finn, Neil Finn, Hollie Fullbrook, Greg Haver, Troy Kingi, Shona Laing, Tami Neilson, Dianne Swann and Clementine Valentine.

Liam Finn's long-teased Hyperverse album will be out on wax for Record Store Day on 12th April — the Crowded House key member encourages us all to 'Unleash Your Animal' on his untamed and psyched-out new single, plus home-crafted accompanying clip. "We can change our lives together with this song. I must sleep now".

Featuring Joshua Worthington-Church of Mammalien on bass, Tāmaki Makaurau's Paul Cathro reemerged with his first official release of '25, also setting his sights on interstellar vistas with crunchy garage-pop nugget 'No Life On Mars'.

Aotearoa production maestro Andrew Spraggon gifts the world a groove-heavy smorgasbord of soulful tunes from his long-running Sola Rosa project on New Tomorrows. The guest-list of instrumental contributors is powerful — Lewis McCallum, Julien Dyne, Jeremy Toy, Kenji Iwamitsu-Holdaway, Finn Scholes, Joe Kaptein, Michael Howell, longtime Sola Rosa members Ben White, Matt Short, and Peter Leupolu, along with vocalists AKOSIA and Joe Probert. "When I started Sola Rosa, I never imagined it would last 25 years. This project has evolved in ways I couldn’t have predicted, and New Tomorrows feels like a culmination of that journey—honoring where I’ve been while opening the door to what’s next. There’s a sense of closing one chapter and beginning another. I’m proud of what this body of work represents, but I’m also ready to explore new ways of creating that aren’t bound by the live band format I’ve focused on for so long".

Ōtautahi's Mim Jensen foreshadows her forthcoming SHADOW OF THE GIFT EP with the dream-pop grandeur of new single 'Safe In Body' — considering "how we are often so caught up in a projection of other people's ideas of us, instead of trusting ourselves with what we know and feel".