Ranking the best songs of Tropical Fuck Storm is a genuinely difficult task, because this Melbourne art-punk supergroup has spent nearly a decade refusing to write the same song twice. Formed in 2017 when Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin stepped away from their long-running band The Drones, TFS pulled in guitarist-keyboardist Erica Dunn (Mod Con, Harmony) and drummer Lauren Hammel (High Tension) and immediately started making some of the strangest, funniest, and most unsettling rock music coming out of Australia. Four studio albums, a run of scorched-earth singles, an EP with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and a catalog full of covers later, here’s my personal, deeply biased, headphones-tested countdown of the 20 tracks that best capture what makes this band so essential.
Chameleon Paint
This is where it all began. Released as a 7-inch single back in September 2017 through Mistletone, “Chameleon Paint” was the very first thing the world heard from Tropical Fuck Storm, and it’s still one of the best mission statements a debut single has ever offered. Liddiard’s guitar tone here is nasty in the best way, all warped, spray-painted texture layered over a rhythm section that never quite settles into a groove you can predict. Play it loud in the car and you’ll notice how the mix keeps shifting weight between speakers, like the whole track is slightly off its axis on purpose.
Soft Power
The second single from A Laughing Death in Meatspace, “Soft Power” leans into the band’s love of digital effects and unconventional song structure in a way that felt genuinely new for Australian rock in 2017. Liddiard’s lyrics take aim at soft cultural coercion with the kind of caustic wit that became a TFS trademark, while the vocal interplay between Liddiard, Kitschin, and Dunn creates a woozy, layered call-and-response. On a good pair of studio monitors, you can hear just how much space the production gives each vocal line to breathe before the guitars swallow it whole.
You Let My Tyres Down
Dropped in January 2018 ahead of the debut album, “You Let My Tyres Down” is one of the more immediately catchy entries in the early TFS catalog, which for this band still means genuinely off-kilter. The chorus hook rides a groove that’s part garage rock, part broken machine, and Kitschin’s basslines anchor the chaos without ever letting it feel tidy. It’s a great song to test on new gear, honestly — if you’re comparing options on a headphones shopping guide, this track’s mix of low-end thump and jagged treble is a solid stress test.
Antimatter Animals
Tucked into A Laughing Death in Meatspace, “Antimatter Animals” is a slower burn than the album’s big singles, and that’s exactly why longtime fans keep coming back to it. The arrangement gives Dunn’s guitar work room to build tension gradually instead of exploding immediately, and Liddiard’s vocal delivery has that weary, half-spoken quality he’d later refine even further on Braindrops. Recorded at the band’s own Dodgy Brothers Studio in Nagambie, Victoria, the track carries a lo-fi warmth that feels intentional rather than accidental.
Paradise
The lead single from 2019’s Braindrops, “Paradise” is one of the most structurally ambitious things TFS has ever released, clocking in past the six-minute mark and constantly mutating along the way. Produced by Liddiard alongside Mike Deslandes, the song shifts between sparse verses and enormous, distorted climaxes, and the mastering job lets the dynamic range actually hit — quiet parts stay quiet, loud parts genuinely detonate. It’s the kind of track where a decent pair of earbuds versus a cheap set makes a real audible difference, which is worth thinking about if you’re weighing options on a compare earbuds resource before your next long listen.
The Future of History
One of the earlier singles from the debut record, “The Future of History” got a proper music video treatment and remains one of the most quoted TFS tracks among fans for its lyrical bite. Liddiard’s songwriting here is dense with historical and political imagery, delivered with the same uncynical fatalism that critic Greil Marcus praised when he compared the band favorably to Liddiard’s old outfit, The Drones. Live, this one tends to hit even harder, with the band leaning into the song’s more chaotic instrumental breakdowns.
A Laughing Death in Meatspace
The title track of the 2018 debut album is TFS distilled into a single song: unpredictable structure, layered harmonies between Kitschin and Dunn, and lyrics that read like dispatches from a very online apocalypse. This is the track that convinced Joyful Noise Recordings to sign the band for US distribution shortly after the album’s release, and it’s easy to hear why — it sounds like nothing else on Australian radio at the time, or honestly since. The title itself, coined for the record, became shorthand for the band’s whole aesthetic: real dread rendered through a very digital, very online lens.
Rubber Bullies
The final single before the debut album dropped, “Rubber Bullies” is one of the noisiest, most physically aggressive songs in the early catalog, and it set the tone for how ferocious this band could get on stage. Greil Marcus specifically singled out its explosions as “glorious and frightening,” and that description still holds up on repeat listens. The interplay between Liddiard’s snarling lead vocal and the counter-vocals from Kitschin and Dunn gives the track a sense of argument, like multiple voices fighting for control of the same chaotic room.
Who’s My Eugene?
Released as a single from Braindrops in July 2019, “Who’s My Eugene?” is a strange, groove-driven track that shows off the album’s expanded instrumental palette, including textures pulled from a genuine Soviet-era space organ played by multi-instrumentalist JP Shilo. The song’s rhythm has an almost funk-adjacent swagger buried under layers of noise, which makes it a rewarding listen for anyone paying attention to the low end. It’s a great example of how TFS uses unconventional instrumentation without ever losing a sense of pop songcraft underneath the weirdness.
Braindrops
The title track from the band’s acclaimed 2019 sophomore album, “Braindrops” was released as a single just days before the full record dropped, and it captures the album’s core theme of information overload and mental static. The production, again handled by Liddiard and Deslandes, layers guitar tones that feel intentionally frayed at the edges, mirroring the lyrical anxiety about a mind that can’t stop absorbing noise. Braindrops the album went on to hold a strong Metacritic score in the high 70s, and this title cut is a big reason critics kept using words like “unsettling” and “essential” in the same sentence.
The Planet of Straw Men
The first single teased from Braindrops, premiered with a video in March 2019 after the band signed to Flightless Records for Australia and New Zealand, “The Planet of Straw Men” is a slow-building, almost krautrock-adjacent piece that trades immediate hooks for mounting dread. It was the song that convinced fans a new TFS era was coming, one slightly less blown-out and more deliberately paced than the debut. On headphones, the way the mix gradually thickens across the runtime rewards patient, close listening rather than casual background play.
Maria 63
If you ask longtime fans to name the single best TFS song, an enormous number will say “Maria 63,” and I’m inclined to agree with them. Closing out Braindrops at nearly eight minutes long, the track is a genuinely devastating piece of songwriting, built around JP Shilo’s violin and the eerie “happy apples” and nylon-string textures that give it a folk-horror quality unlike anything else in the catalog. Liddiard’s vocal performance is stripped almost bare here, and the slow accumulation of dread across its runtime is the closest this band has come to writing something that functions like a short story set to music.
The Happiest Guy Around
Originally premiered in 2018 as one half of a split single with the band Liars for the Less Artists More Condos series, “The Happiest Guy Around” is bitterly ironic in the way only TFS can pull off, pairing a title that sounds cheerful with lyrics that are anything but. The arrangement leans into scratchy, lo-fi production choices that feel deliberately unpolished, giving the song a rawer edge than the more meticulously layered album tracks. It’s a favorite among collectors and deep-catalog fans precisely because it never got the same album-cycle attention as the band’s bigger singles.
Legal Ghost
Released in August 2020 as a 7-inch single via Flightless Records, “Legal Ghost” is a reworking of one of Liddiard’s own tracks originally sketched out in the 1990s, fully fleshed out here into a sprawling six-minute composition. The song ended up anchoring Deep States and remains one of the most structurally patient things the band has recorded, letting tension build across multiple sections instead of rushing to a payoff. It’s mesmerizing in a genuinely hypnotic sense, the kind of track that rewards a dedicated, uninterrupted listen rather than shuffle-mode background noise.
Suburbiopia
The lead single from Deep States, released in April 2020 right as the pandemic was reshaping everyone’s daily life, “Suburbiopia” digs into cult mentality and suburban paranoia with an unsettling amount of prescience. The 7-inch single paired it with a cover of The Saints’ “This Perfect Day,” featuring guest vocals from Amyl and the Sniffers’ Amy Taylor, which tells you exactly how connected TFS is within the wider Australian punk scene. Musically, the track balances a genuinely catchy central riff against increasingly frantic percussion from Hammel, and it’s one of the more physically danceable songs in the catalog despite its dark subject matter.
G.A.F.F.
A 2021 single from Deep States, “G.A.F.F.” got the official video treatment and stands out as one of the album’s more direct, riff-forward moments after a run of slower-building tracks. The song’s production, again helmed by Liddiard and Deslandes at their Nagambie studio, keeps the guitars front and center while Kitschin and Dunn’s harmonies weave in and out like a warning siren. It’s a strong entry point for new listeners who want the TFS experience without committing to an eight-minute epic first.
Moonburn
The title track of the 2022 Moonburn EP, this original song arrived alongside a handful of covers of the Stooges, Jimi Hendrix, and Talking Heads, giving fans a snapshot of the band’s listening diet at the time. “Moonburn” itself is moodier and more atmospheric than the band’s guitar-forward singles, leaning into space and restraint in a way that shows real range beyond pure noise-rock aggression. It’s a good pick if you want to hear how TFS handles tension without maximum volume as the primary tool.
The Golden Ratio
Also from the Moonburn EP, “The Golden Ratio” is one of the more overlooked tracks in the band’s catalog, and it deserves far more attention than it typically gets in best-of lists. The song’s structure toys with mathematical and conceptual ideas in its lyrics while the arrangement stays comparatively lean, letting individual instrumental parts stand out more clearly than on the denser album cuts. If you’re the kind of listener who likes discovering the deep cuts that only came up in EPs rather than full-length records, this is exactly the sort of track worth digging for in the band’s broader songs archive.
Goon Show
A lead single from 2025’s Fairyland Codex, the band’s first album on Fire Records after a difficult few years that included Kitschin’s cancer diagnosis and successful treatment, “Goon Show” is one of the most politically charged and fierce songs the band has ever released. Recorded with co-producer Michael Beach at Dodgy Brothers Studio, it splits fan opinion — some call it a highlight, others find it a bit much — but nobody denies its raw energy or the sheer conviction in the vocal delivery. Given everything the band went through before making this record, hearing them come back this hard hits differently than it would from almost any other group.
Irukandji Syndrome
The opening track and one of the standout singles from Fairyland Codex, “Irukandji Syndrome” is widely cited by reviewers as one of the album’s best songs and arguably the best opener the band has released to date. Named after one of the world’s smallest and most dangerous jellyfish, the track sets the tone for an album that Kitschin, Dunn, and Liddiard built around the chaos of “a fateful landslide,” populated by characters teetering on the edge of collapse. It’s proof that nearly a decade in, Tropical Fuck Storm can still open a record with something that sounds genuinely dangerous.
Frequently Asked Questions
What genre is Tropical Fuck Storm?
Tropical Fuck Storm is generally classified as art punk, experimental rock, and noise rock, though individual songs pull in elements of psychedelic rock, post-punk, krautrock, garage rock, and even folk-adjacent instrumentation depending on the album.
Who are the members of Tropical Fuck Storm?
The band is made up of Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, both formerly of The Drones, alongside guitarist and keyboardist Erica Dunn and drummer Lauren Hammel. All four members contribute vocals, which is part of why the layered harmonies feel so central to the band’s sound.
What is Tropical Fuck Storm’s best album?
Opinions genuinely differ among fans and critics. A Laughing Death in Meatspace (2018) is often praised as a startling, fully-formed debut, Braindrops (2019) is frequently called the band’s most emotionally devastating record thanks to tracks like “Maria 63,” and 2025’s Fairyland Codex has been widely described as a strong return to form after the band’s touring hiatus.
Is Tropical Fuck Storm a supergroup?
Yes. The band is often described as a supergroup because its members came from other notable Australian acts, including The Drones, High Tension, Mod Con, Harmony, and Palm Springs, before joining forces in 2017.
What should I listen to first if I’m new to Tropical Fuck Storm?
“Chameleon Paint” is the most historically appropriate starting point since it was the band’s debut single, but “Irukandji Syndrome” or “Legal Ghost” are also excellent entry points if you want a sense of where the band has ended up more recently.