There’s something undeniably electric about an overdue debut. Five years of playing together will either dull the spark or sharpen it to a knife’s edge—and Now Would Be A Good Time, the first full-length from Australian outfit Folk Bitch Trio, lands firmly in the latter camp. It’s a record that feels honed, lived-in, and wholly earned.
Made up of Gracie Sinclair, Jeanie Pilkington, and Heide Peverelle, the trio has been slowly building buzz across Australia’s indie circuits, opening for genre-defiers like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Alex G, and Julia Jacklin. But to call them simply an “opening act” is to miss the point entirely. Their music doesn’t feel like a warm-up; it’s a confrontation cloaked in lullabies.
The album’s title, Now Would Be A Good Time, functions less like an invitation and more like a command—a line drawn in the sand by three musicians who’ve spent the last half-decade figuring out exactly who they are. If you’re just hearing about them, you’re right on time.
Their lead single, “Cathode Ray,” is a standout moment not just for its lyrical candor but for its audacity. It’s as visceral as it is poetic, a meditation on emotional confinement that threatens to crack its own skin. The sound is minimal on the surface—fingerpicked guitar, breathy harmonies—but the tension simmers, threatening to boil over. It’s less about catharsis and more about the fight to reach it.
And that’s the prevailing tone of the album: restraint that still draws blood. Tracks like “Moth Song” and “Foreign Bird” are steeped in an aching quiet, while “The Actor” leans into a kind of theatrical melancholy. Across the board, the harmonies are rich and eerie, more spectral than sweet—think Mountain Man by way of PJ Harvey. There’s a confidence in the trio’s refusal to overcrowd the space, letting silence play its own role in the arrangement.
Lyrically, the album reads like a series of fragmented diaries—devotional, exasperated, intimate. There are songs about religion (“God’s A Different Sword”), about self-sabotage, about memory and its warping effects. There’s a timelessness here, not in a nostalgic way, but in that the songs seem to exist outside of any trend or expectation. They simply are, and that’s the quiet power of this band.
There’s still an edge of mystery to Folk Bitch Trio, which feels deliberate. This isn’t an album trying to go viral or compete in a crowded indie-folk algorithm. It’s an offering, slow and simmering, meant to be sat with. And like all good offerings, it demands your attention in return.