The Smith Street Band

While inspired by Australia’s many punk and pub-rock trailblazers, The Smith Street Band are just as indebted to America’s modern wave of gruff, post-emo rabble-rousers. Led by founding members Wil Wagner and Lee Hartney, the Melbourne band have toured with like-minded peers The Front Bottoms, favoring heart-on-sleeve anthems with crashing guitars. The Smith Street Band formed in 2010 and released their debut, No One Gets Lost Anymore, a year later. The group’s career picked up steam upon the release of the bracing, Jeff Rosenstock-produced 2014 full-length Throw Me In the River. After earning their first Australian No. 1 album in 2020 with Don’t Waste Your Anger—which nodded to earnest indie rock as well as punk—the band revealed an even softer side on 2021’s Unplugged in Wombat State Forest, featuring folk-leaning, acoustic-driven takes on existing songs from their catalog.