Hype List 2026: Radio Free Alice

New year. New noise. Hype is back on the hunt, digging through the chaos, the chatter and the late-night tip-offs to find the acts who aren’t just next up, but about to detonate.

Dork’s Hype List is our annual spotlight on the artists who’ve started to really stand out – not because they’re destined for instant superstardom, but because there’s something in what they’re doing that feels fresh, deliberate and worth keeping close tabs on.

It isn’t about calling winners or demanding overnight breakthroughs. Consider it a guide to the acts shaping the edges of what’s next: the ones we’re excited about, curious about, and confident enough to back as they take their next steps.

Radio Free Alice are caught in a kind of geographic double exposure – still connected to Melbourne, increasingly rooted in the UK, and living mostly in the liminal space between. Their year has unfolded inside that tension, and the way frontman Noah Learmonth describes it has the calmness of somebody who hasn’t had time to process any of it. “We played our final US show last night,” he says, “so today the whole band is pretty much catatonic.” It’s exhaustion earned the long way round.

They’ve been “in the UK” for months but don’t quite recognise the idea of “living” here. The band say it “doesn’t quite feel like we’ve properly moved… because we’ve been on tour non-stop.” Yet their gratitude for what’s happening is real. It’s “been fantastic,” Noah explains – not in the shiny, triumphant way bands sometimes frame things, but in the small, meaningful ways. “It’s been strange and exciting to see how many people are coming out to the shows.”

Of course, the UK has also been its own unpredictable teacher. Noah recalls being hit with “a beer bottle… in Newcastle,” and, in Liverpool, “another guy threw tomato sauce at me… both times while being called a cunt.” He adds, dryly: “I hadn’t experienced much airborne violence from vehicles before visiting Northern England.” It’s delivered without bitterness — just another data point in a year defined by the unexpected.

Not everything erratic has been negative. The band describe All Together Now in Ireland as a moment that hit differently. “There was just something about that set that felt really magical and fun,” Noah says. Afterward, they found themselves talking to Julian Casablancas and Bobby Gillespie. It’s the kind of story that would feel manufactured if it weren’t told so plainly.

“Our debut album is coming out in 2026”

Musically, the band’s restlessness has become a strength. Any free day the band get is spent in a practice studio — not out of obligation but instinct. “We’re constantly working on new music,” Noah says. The sound shaping this next chapter is intentionally varied. “I’m not entirely sure how to define the new sound – it’s quite eclectic,” he explains. “We all love so many different types of music that the songs are often quite different from one another.”

Their influences drift between eras and scenes: “80s music, like the NZ Flying Nun scene,” alongside “melodic post-punk bands like Cleaners From Venus and The Go-Betweens.” And then, cutting across that lineage, a distinctly modern thread: “Musically, probably Yung Lean. We’re all really into him.” It’s a combination that shouldn’t work, yet perfectly explains their blend of brightness and melancholy.

Despite distance, the Melbourne scene remains their compass. “We definitely feel part of a scene,” Noah says. “We feel very connected to the Melbourne music scene we came out of, with bands like HighSchool, The Belair Lip Bombs and Raindogs. We owe a lot to those bands.”

Next year crystallises everything. “Our debut album is coming out in 2026, hopefully around March,” Noah confirms. “We’re putting a lot of pressure on ourselves for this album to be as good as it can possibly be.” Success isn’t framed as conquest, but quiet hope: “Our debut album will have come out and people will like it, I suppose.”

And then, before signing off, Noah slips in something mischievous and completely on brand for a band allergic to pomp: “Oasis are overrated.”  ■ 

Taken from the December 2025 / January 2026 issue of Dork, out now.