When Girl Monstar first split in 1993, their final show at Melbourne’s inaugural Big Day Out felt like a closing bracket on one of Australia’s most visible all-female rock bands of the late ’80s and early ’90s. More than three decades later, they return not with nostalgia but with a pointed new statement: ‘HATE TRAIN’.
Written by singer and guitarist Sherry Rich alongside her sister-in-law, Boston-based poet Ros Zimmerman, ‘HATE TRAIN’ is anchored in present realities. Zimmerman has been protesting daily outside ICE holding centres in Boston, while guitarist Anne McCue is currently living through a US winter that Rich describes as politically surreal. The track channels that disquiet into something direct.
“It feels essential as artists to use our craft to protest in this way,” Rich explains, framing the song as a response to what she calls “corporate kings and billionaire bros” reshaping public life through power and profit. The result is less allegory than indictment, delivered with the band’s characteristic guitar-driven clarity.
The accompanying video, directed by Melbourne filmmaker @freezedried, draws visual cues from DEVO and performance art, following a troupe of “baby men” as they disrupt Melbourne’s train network. The imagery is absurd on the surface but pointed underneath, asking who — or what — is really steering the chaos.
The reunion arrives with substantial history behind it. Formed in 1988, Girl Monstar were the first all-female band in Australia to achieve a national profile, playing more than 200 shows and sharing stages with Iggy Pop, Ramones, Sonic Youth and The Divinyls among others. Their singles ‘Surfing on a Wave of Love’ and ‘Joe Cool’ topped alternative charts at the turn of the decade and earned ARIA nominations, culminating in 1992’s Monstereo Delicio.
In the intervening years, Rich, McCue and drummer Sue World each pursued independent careers across Australia and the US. Now, with bassist Janene Abbott back in the fold, Girl Monstar are writing from accumulated experience — as musicians, activists and observers of political cycles repeating in new forms.
‘HATE TRAIN’ suggests their return is less about revisiting the past than responding to the present. The band that once built its reputation on live ferocity now turns that energy toward critique, using reunion as platform rather than retread.
Watch a short documentary about the band HERE.
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