We have good news and bad news. Let’s start with the latter, as I found this message in my mailbox: “For now, we are putting Bad//Dreems on hold, to let our precious journey percolate and to let all of us have a chance to give time to our families, jobs and other projects. The upcoming tour will be our last shows for an indefinite period.” It’s making their latest (fifth) studio album Ultra Dundee feel like both a victory lap and a slow fade into the pub lights. The good news? It’s a belter.

Written and recorded on home turf, the successor to 2023’s Hoo Ha! LP doubles down on the band’s dusty Australiana mythology, half-character study, half-heatstroke hallucination. The eleven new songs—gravely garage rock meets post-punk with the emphasis on punk—are somewhat more subdued than what we are used to, but they hit just as hard. There’s grit in every line, but also a strange tenderness, like they’re documenting ghosts before they disappear. Sonically, it’s loose but purposeful, sharpened and sprawling, intense yet infectious.

If this is the end, Bad//Dreems have chosen a fitting and clever final statement. There’s a good chance you’ll see this one in a prominent spot when we look back at the best of 2026 in December, but we also hope for a restart of the band in due course.

Ultra Dundee—produced by Dan Luscombe—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Gutto Records.

Add to wantlist: Bad//Dreems || Bandcamp || Discogs