March 1 marked the release of “Boring!”, a new single from Eora/Sydney band Airline. It’s their first release of 2026, recorded fast and written in a single session, and it sets up a short run of activity: another single, “Total Collapse”, lands March 15, followed by the EP “koi” on March 30. An EP release show is booked for Oxford Arts Factory in Sydney on March 27.
Airline are four friends using the band as both a place to hide and a reason to hang out. Sonically, the music leans on contrast. Space and restraint give way to volume; soft passages sit close, then get flattened by distortion. The reference points are broad—shoegaze, post-hardcore, emo, folk, metal—but the throughline is dynamics rather than genre. Songs expand and contract, sometimes colliding, sometimes leaving things unresolved.
“Boring!” is aimed less at a scene and more at a habit. The song circles around what the band see as a growing preference for posture over substance—what happens when being seen the right way starts to matter more than sounding like anything at all. It’s not framed as a manifesto, more like an irritated observation that stuck.
“We wrote ‘Boring!’ pretty quickly,” Andy says. “Cal came in with the chords and a loose structure and we pieced it together that day. I think we were all pretty tired of the cool-guy scene/culture at the time. Where people, afraid of being seen as cringe or tacky, would put aside their own beliefs and surrender their own unique taste in the interest of appearing ‘cool’. Without us realising, I think this significantly impacted the song.”
The target isn’t enthusiasm or awkwardness, but the quiet social rules that form around them. Airline talk about the way people learn to nod along, stay neutral, or hold back opinions to avoid standing out. In their view, that kind of self-editing doesn’t stay personal—it shapes who gets included.
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“By putting on the nonchalant act, you’re not only squeezing yourself into a ‘cool’ scene,” Andy continues, “but you’re actively partaking in other people’s exclusion. We think that’s ‘Boring!’. Everyone has a voice, and not everything is so serious. Be cringe if you want to, take the piss, have something to say.”
Asked when this became impossible to ignore, the band point to a shift away from listening. “The point that it became too blatant was when people cared more about image than sound,” they explain. “When people forget that this is all about music, the way things look becomes a higher priority than the sound of it. It then becomes a matter of whether or not someone fits the mood in terms of style and attitude, as opposed to the quality of their craft.”
That concern sits underneath the song rather than on top of it. “Boring!” doesn’t overstate its case; it just keeps returning to the same frustration, letting repetition do the work. Musically, it follows Airline’s usual push-pull—melody partially buried, volume used as pressure rather than payoff.
The conversation naturally widens to Sydney. Despite the band’s criticism of exclusion, they’re clear they’re not short on music they respect. “Sydney is full of such incredible and honest music,” they say. “It may be hard to know where and when to see it, but it’s certainly here.” They note that when Airline started, adjacent sounds were coming mostly from the south coast or further north. Now, they hear versions of it everywhere, which makes the emphasis on curation feel more unnecessary than inevitable.
They talk about bands—and friends—who, in their view, have resisted that pull by choosing themselves rather than adapting. Charles Carnabuci is mentioned as a close friend with a direct, unfiltered approach to songwriting. Major Arcana come up for their technical ability and lack of compromise. Creeping Jenny, from the same small town as Airline, are described with a kind of mutual recognition. Jan. gets a nod for disappearing, reappearing, and releasing songs that feel considered rather than calculated.
That same idea carries over to the EP release show lineup: June Eclipse, Creeping Jenny, Gush, and Twelve Point Buck. Airline are cautious about placing themselves in any larger story. “I’m not sure I’ve got the authority to say where we fit in the broader picture,” they admit. But they do see a shared thread. “Each of these bands seem to be unapologetically themselves. There’s very little pretence or facade. They all kinda have the thing that they do and they do it well.”
“Total Collapse”, due March 15, opens the EP “koi”. The band describe the six-song release without dressing it up: slow songs, loud songs, hopeful ones, angry ones. Some of their favourites, by their own measure.
For now, “Boring!” stands on its own. A short song, written quickly, about what happens when caring becomes embarrassing and neutrality turns into a kind of social requirement.
