When Tom Busby steps into the solo spotlight with Rockhampton Hangover, it doesn’t feel like a “side-project.” It feels like someone peeling back the bandage to show the scar. This is Busby unfiltered — not the polished, harmony-rich half of Busby Marou, but a storyteller standing alone under a harsher light, raw and human.

From the opening chords of tracks like 'Cyclone' and 'Waiting For Tomorrow', you sense the lean toward a more rugged, roots-inflected sound. Recorded in the Texas Hill Country with producer Ben Kweller, the album carries a sense of dust, sweat, and wide open sky — heartland rock colliding with alt-country grit.

Lyrically, the album works like a confessional: reflections on restlessness, loss, and the strange clarity you get after brief collapse. Busby told the media that the record isn’t just about “a wild night out” — it’s about the kind of hangover that follows when life knocks you down, and you choose to get back up. It’s honest, unvarnished and overdue.

What stands out is Busby’s willingness to be imperfect and real. Without the backing harmonies of his duo days, his voice carries all the scratch and grain — a signature that makes each story feel lived, not performed. The stripped-back production leaves space for emotion to breathe, for silence to echo, for pain and hope to exist side by side.

In 2025, when so much music glitters under the polish of auto-tune and algorithms, Rockhampton Hangover is a stubborn relic of humanity. It reminds us that songs aren’t always meant to be perfect. Sometimes, they’re meant to hurt a little, breathe a little, and linger in your ribcage for days.

Tom Busby didn’t rebrand. He peeled back the layers. And in doing so, he might’ve made the most authentic record of his life so far.

Pressed on heavyweight clear vinyl with orange and green marble and our signature obi strip. LIMITED TO 750 COPIES.