The Rubens are back.
Their new single “Goanna” lands as a bright, groove-heavy slice of indie-pop: sun-soaked on the surface, but with just enough chaos bubbling underneath to keep things interesting.
It’s a shift that leans into melody and movement, while still holding onto the band’s unmistakable DNA.
Elliot Margin sums it up as, “[A] song is about two chaotic people holding each other up. The wheels have come off and the car is on fire, but the radio is on.”
That tension — things falling apart while something else keeps you grounded — runs throughout the track.
It also mirrors how the song came together. Margin says it started with a single line — “I could keep repeating one night” — that lingered as a voice note for ages before everything else clicked into place.
“I would sing it to myself over and over again, coupled with a whole lot of gibberish,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out where it was meant to go from there so it lived as a voice note for a long time. Then one day it was in my head again and rest of the song sort of spat out from there.”
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The track arrives alongside a striking visual, filmed along the NSW South Coast. The video centres on Vietnamese-Australian dancer and choreographer Kenny D Pham, whose performance brings a physical intensity to the track’s push-and-pull energy. Shot across spots like Stanwell Tops and Wollongong, it’s anchored by the band’s now-signature six-sided speaker setup; part art piece, part stage prop.
It marks the beginning of a new run of releases for the Menangle outfit, who’ve spent more than a decade building one of the most consistent catalogues in Australian alt-rock.
Since uploading “Lay It Down” to triple j Unearthed back in 2011, The Rubens have moved from local breakout to festival mainstays, picking up Unearthed Artist of the Year, scoring multiple Hottest 100 entries, and stacking platinum records along the way.
Tracks like “My Gun” and “Hoops” didn’t just chart, they stuck; with the latter taking out the No. 1 Hottest 100 spot in 2015 and racking up over 100 million streams.
Across five albums, the band have kept evolving. From the rawer edges of their early work to the polished, groove-driven sound of 0202, which debuted at No. 1 and spawned the double platinum hit “Live In Life”, they’ve managed to shift gears without losing their core identity.
“Goanna” feels like the logical next step in that story. A little looser, a little brighter, but still rooted in the same instinct that’s carried them this far.
“Goanna” by The Rubens is out now.
