Release Roundup: Frog Power, Lontalius, Club Ruby, Beneficiary 414127193, Foley

Howdy readers, we're back in the swing of things at UTR HQ as we cap off our first official week of 2026. Get up to speed on last year's best local releases with our UTR 2025 End Of Year Playlist, revisit our coverage of Earth Tongue, Hemi Hemingway, Erase Everything and WHO SHOT SCOTT, then scroll downwards for more new / recent Aotearoa highlights from frog power, Lontalius, Club Ruby, Beneficiary 414127193, and Foley.

What better way to start off 2026 than with some 'creamy tones'? It's the weirdly catchy, other-dimensional new anthem from Ōtepoti DIY pop-rock song-crafter and visual artiste frog power.

We all know about the 12 days of Christmas, but what about the 12 Days Of Lontalius? Performing at Tāmaki Makaurau's star-powered Laneway Festival next month and soon jetting abroad for a US tour, the acclaimed Aotearoa songwriter / producer's emotive new collection is out "on bandcamp now for the freaks".

Busting out pop-punk hooks galore on their 2025 anthem 'Heartbreak Overtime', Tāmaki Makaurau's Club Ruby tease listeners with the prospect of a low key piano ballad before letting rip on 'What My Bones Know' — described by singer President Ruby "a way to navigate care while honouring my own experience and the experiences of my ancestors." The group's Don’t Gaslight Me! EP is out in full on 30th January.

Hailing from the perpetually windswept metropolis that is Aotearoa's capital Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Beneficiary 414127193 emerges from their studio lair with fifteen deeply immersive compositions, spanning dark ambiance, torched mesmeric noisescapes and subterranean metal extremity on EXPERIENCE LIFE. "I'd planned to get cassettes made for release, but too many barriers right now, and for reasons out of any of our control, I feel like now is a fitting time to put this into the world, and out of my mind. The last release was written from the pit, in this one however, I attempted to showcase a little more of the breadth and scope of the human experience. As always, tell your friends you love them."

Foley deploy synths as sparkling as a glass of Lion Red in the Auckland summer sunlight on their new anthem 'Cinematic', heralding the Aotearoa pop duo's LIKE AN ACTRESS EP launching on 25th February. "'Cinematic' is about a love so beautiful and promising that you feel like it may not be real — at the start of a relationship the glow around a person can be so overwhelming and you find yourself romanticising everything."