Barely taking a breath since releasing their debut EP, Brisbane indie pop favourites Mid Drift have returned with five new tracks that justify their breakout status. On Good at Avoiding, the five-piece craft a sound uncompromisingly built for the stage. I can easily see Open Hand and Washed’s repetitive hooks easily catch on to the uninitiated, while jangly guitars and tight drumming, with frontwoman Sarah Engstrom’s affable vocals, are sure to please all types of festival crowds.
The clear standout in the track listing is Whiplash, which runs on all cylinders from start to finish. Frontwoman Sarah Engstrom’s vocals have improved in a short time since the band’s first EP, effortlessly gliding through runs in the song’s epic breakdown to turn a messy brain fog into the band’s most satisfying, summery anthem yet. Madness is another highlight, where her impassioned vocals fully reflect her frustrations around a situationship: “you’re gonna waste my time, I know you’ll never be mine,” she deflects in the chorus, no longer avoiding confrontation as the EP’s title might suggest.
The EP is also produced far better than Lemon Lime and Tan Lines. While the former spanned the band’s recorded work from June 2023 to February 2025, meaning there’s a noticeable difference in the band’s playing style and vocals across each track, Good at Avoiding sounds like a more consistent body of work. Songs are more fleshed out with more layered guitars and complex melodies—Washed is a great example where each band member gets time to shine, from the skittering drumming to the satisfying electric guitar runs. In the future, I just hope the bassist is turned up in the mix.
In the evergrowing Australian indie pop scene, not many bands have excited me as much as Mid Drift in the last couple years. Of course, they wear their influences on their sleeve, with Ocean Alley’s Chiaroscuro being the closest comparison I can make to their sound (unsurprisingly the Brisbanites landed a support slot with them recently). But their music is genuinely charming, their live shows are top notch, and being young they have a can’t-stop-won’t-stop mentality that will surely carry them to national recognition soon, especially if they keep writing hits like Whiplash.
