Earlier this year, Backseat Mafia caught The Gnomes supporting Viagra Boys at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion and it immediately felt like watching a band operating on pure instinct. Hooks flew everywhere, amps buzzed with barely controlled chaos and the whole set carried the reckless confidence of a group already convinced they belonged on much bigger stages. That momentum now crashes fully into focus on their debut EP More, a release arriving amid one of the fastest rises any young Australian guitar band has experienced in years.
Since dropping “Magic Man” in April, The Gnomes have gone from underground curiosity to international word-of-mouth obsession at astonishing speed. Support arrived quickly from BBC 6 Music’s Craig Charles, Triple J’s Home & Hosed and Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1, while Spotify playlist placements pushed the band onto Fresh Finds globally. Their debut London show at Third Man Records Soho sold out before they’d even landed in the UK.
The new single “Thinking Of Me” captures exactly why people are latching onto them so quickly. Built on jangling guitars, frantic momentum and melodies that feel one step away from spilling over completely, the track sounds both lovingly retro and completely chaotic. Frontman Jay Millar revealed the song was written while recording demos using a cheap Rickenbacker 12-string knock-off the rest of the band hated. “Thinking Of Me” eventually ditched the “shitty 12-string”, but kept what Millar described as “the energy of me having something to prove.” That scrappy determination runs through the entire song.
Recorded at Singing Bird Studios in Frankston, More follows the band’s critically acclaimed self-titled debut from 2025, which picked up praise from MOJO, Classic Rock, CREEM and Raven Sings The Blues. MOJO’s David Fricke praised the band’s “blazing harmonies and original flair”, while Australian outlets compared their mix of garage-pop hooks and ragged energy to everyone from The Beatles and The Kinks through to Sunnyboys and Hoodoo Gurus.
Part of what makes The Gnomes feel so exciting is how young and unfiltered everything still is. Millar is only 19, with the rest of the band barely older, yet they’ve already sold thousands of tickets across headline runs, played festivals like Golden Plains Festival and Luliepalooza, and are now tearing through their first UK and European tour with appearances at The Great Escape. Viral support from Spanish tastemaker Tremendo Garaja only accelerated things further, describing the band as sounding “as if a freak wormhole spat them straight out of 1965.”
Next month, The Gnomes return home for their biggest Melbourne headline show yet at The Night Cat before heading out nationally with Spiderbait. Right now though, More feels like the real headline. A short, sharp burst of garage-pop chaos from a band moving far too fast to stay underground much longer.
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