Radio Free Alice Step Into the Future with "Empty Words"
Radio Free Alice return with their new EP Empty Words, a sharp, post-punk reflection on nostalgia, restless nights, and moving forward.
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8/21/20251 min read
Australian new wave/post-punk outfit Radio Free Alice are done looking backward, even if the world around them can’t seem to let go of the past. With their new EP Empty Words, out now via Double Drummer, the band capture the uneasy tension between nostalgia and forward momentum while delivering their most arresting collection of songs yet.
Focus track “Chinese Restaurant” sets the tone perfectly. Written while touring the UK, frontman Noah Learmonth recalls the surreal sense of living inside someone else’s history: “Every venue had a punny name nodding to some bygone legend, places like ‘EBGBS’ or ‘The Stoned Rose’. Driving around the UK in this tour van felt like wandering through the aftermath of a house party that was definitely over, but no one seemed capable of moving on.”
That strange ghostliness runs through the EP, a project Learmonth admits is rooted in a lifelong feeling: “That the world’s this museum for the past we didn’t even live through.”
If Empty Words grapples with memory, it does so with eyes fixed firmly on the future. Tracks like “Regret” and “Toyota Camry” shimmer with energy, pairing jangly guitars with clever, emotionally honest songwriting. “Toyota Camry,” laced with retro backing vocals, sounds like it was made for rolling the windows of your car down at 2 am and pretending the world is a music video.
Radio Free Alice are keeping the new wave/post-punk spirit alive, and it's a fun ride.
Listen below:
