There are albums that hum with intention, and then there are albums that howl. Farrelly, the long-awaited debut full-band release from Newcastle-based singer-songwriter Farrelly, does the latter — unapologetically and beautifully. Released on April 10, 2025, this nine-track record is not just a collection of songs, but a visceral outpouring of rage, hope, heartbreak, and resilience. Equal parts folk-rock diary, political sermon, and late-night confession, Farrelly demands to be heard, not just played.
Born in the windswept farming town of Apsley in Victoria’s Wimmera region — the very soil that raised a young Nick Cave — Farrelly has long been writing with a pen dipped in the dirt of rural hardship and the sparks of urban unrest. But it’s only now, after more than three decades of performing, that we’re getting a proper taste of what happens when that fire is captured in a studio setting. And what we’re hearing is nothing short of a reckoning.
The album opens with “Somewhere in Uvalde,” a song so heavy it feels like it’s made of stone. Inspired by a haunting Ted Littleford cartoon created in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, the track wraps sparse acoustic guitar around aching vocals that grieve not just for the children lost, but for a world numb to tragedy. It’s not preachy. It’s not polished. It’s pure human sorrow, and it sets the tone for the album’s unflinching emotional honesty.
From there, Farrelly pivots sharply into the blistering satire of “Heroes of the Day,” a brass-infused rock march that skewers hollow political gestures and empty media platitudes with the precision of a poet and the fury of a pub-floor revolutionary. It’s protest music, but not the kind that plays nicely on a playlist. It dares you to question what you’ve accepted as normal — and it sounds like fun doing it.
“Sign of the Times” and “Almost Midnight” bring in shades of late-70s storytelling rock, echoing Springsteen and Joe Jackson, while “Shadows” offers a soul-tinged slow burn that manages to feel like both a confession and a confrontation. By the time we reach “One Night of Acton,” Farrelly has fully unleashed the post-punk demon within. A song of betrayal and blistered trust, it turns personal experience into a wall of cathartic noise — an anthem for anyone who’s ever been ghosted by someone they thought they knew.
“Feeding Time” is one of the album’s most biting moments, a snarling critique of late-stage capitalism that rolls like a blues train driven straight through a boardroom. Gritty guitars and sharp lyrical turns make it impossible to ignore — or sit still through. In contrast, “Let Go” dials it down, offering a rare moment of resignation, a quiet inhale between the album’s heavier punches.
And then comes the closer, “Indignation,” a song that begins as a whisper and grows into a gospel-tinged wail. It is here that Farrelly’s voice — both literal and lyrical — finds its highest purpose. There’s no tidy resolution, no false hope. Just a voice howling from the edge, surrounded by a choir of believers who, even in their fatigue, refuse to stop caring. It’s the sound of someone who’s seen too much, still choosing to fight. And it’s devastatingly beautiful.
Produced by Gareth Hudson in Newcastle and powered by longtime collaborator and bassist Mick Rippon, Farrelly is a genre-blurring album that doesn’t just bridge folk, rock, blues, and gospel — it fuses them together into something entirely its own. The instrumentation is as raw and dynamic as the stories being told, and the result is a project that feels both deeply personal and urgently universal.
This is music for the tired but not defeated. For those who still believe that art can stir something in the soul, that a song can still move the needle. Farrelly isn’t background music — it’s frontline sound. A bold, bleeding statement from a voice that’s been ready for this moment for decades. And if this album is any indication, Farrelly isn’t just here to make music. He’s here to shake the walls.
