Hayley JensenIt has been a rollicking good year for Australian Country. Country veterans and rising stars alike filled the charts, blessing us with jubilant bangers and poignant ballads. From Wade Forster to Hayley Jensen, from Lewis Love to Sarah Storer, in 2025, there has truly been a release for every type of Country-Lover.
Narrowing this list down to ten picks was no easy feat. We at Countrytown also want to holler out a much-deserved shoutout to Kaylee Bell, who’s stunning recent album Cowboy Up only just didn’t make the list on a technicality (namely due to her Kiwi nationality).
And now, with no further ado, read on for our specially curated list of the Best Australian Country Albums of 2025.
Wade Forster – Gooseneck Party
With his sophomore album, Wade Forster invites listeners to dig their thumbs into the belt loops of their blue jeans and join the party. On the album’s title track, the singing cowboy chirps “Gooseneck Party is the best party I’ve ever known,” and it is impossible to not believe him.
Wade Forster isn’t merely a country singer – he is a true cowboy, born and raised on a cattle station deep in the Queensland outback. After years on the professional rodeo circuit, he burst onto the musical scene in 2021, when his cover of Tyler Childers’ Oneida garnered countless views, and gave him the drive to record his debut album, fittingly titled The Beginning.
It isn’t easy to follow up an album that went on to be streamed over 50 million times, but with Gooseneck Party, Forster solidifies himself as a defining voice of the Australian country scene. The release is sprawling, boasting twenty-two tracks in total, but is buoyed by a breathless energy, imbued with cheeky guitar licks and jubilant lashings of fiddle. There isn’t a dull moment at the Gooseneck Party.
Sweet Talk – Switch On
With the album’s juicy opening guitar riff, Sweet Talk promise the listener a tight forty minutes of virtuosic musicianship and sunny grooves. Switch On is a mellow delight, the perfect soundtrack to a relaxed cruise down a dusty summer road. The vocal arrangements are particularly satisfying – tight and dulcet, the perfect mode of storytelling.
Together, the six Melbourne musicians that make up Sweet Talk possess a good-natured swagger. And their debut album is a stunning feat that hints at an illustrious career to come. Switch On refused to leave the ARIA Country Top 20 for a whopping eight weeks – these country musicians are switched on, indeed.
Switch On is a project that details an enjoyably Blues-y Americana, but manages to do so through a distinctly Australian lens.
The Wolfe Brothers – Australian Made
From the get-go, Australian Made is a riot. With a rollicking drumbeat, soaring melody, and irresistibly agrarian guitar, the album’s title track gives the listener an immediate taste of The Wolfe Brothers’ characteristic heartland tunes.
Australian Made is the seventh studio album from The Wolfe Brothers, who have won a stupendous ten Gold Guitar Awards and two Countrytown Awards. (They have come a long way from their 2012 stint on Australia’s Got Talent.)
With this album, country veterans Tom and Nick Wolfe confirm that they are proud to call this rugged land their home. Australian Made is a celebration of their roots, of dust and rolling hills, sweat and leather saddles, firm handshakes and galloping mustangs. Honest, country living and wide open skies get their dues with The Wolfe Brothers.
Hayley Jensen – Country Soul
Country Soul is the perfect moniker for Hayley Jensen’s intoxicating fifth album. This is far from her first rodeo.
Jensen first achieved fame after wowing audiences with her meaty vocals and placing fourth on the second series of Australian Idol in 2004. She has since gone on to be nominated for multiple Country Music Awards across numerous releases. Her 2018 album Turning Up The Dial became her first to enter ARIA Top 100, and Country Soul has followed on from that success in abundance. The album peaked at number 14 on the ARIA Charts.
At its heart, Country Soul is a fierce party album and a celebration of country living. As the powerhouse country singer divulged to Countrytown earlier this year, “The opening line of Country Soul is 'you can take a girl out of the country, but you can't take her out of me,’ and I am that person…We still got the horses, we go home and still get out there and stack some wood – that’s just the life that you grow up living. I think those values and just that way of life and thinking, it sticks with you no matter where you sort of go. I think that's what it means to have a country soul.”
There is no doubt that Country Soul will have you strumming along on your very own air guitar.
The Pleasures – Enemy Of My Enemy
With their soulful second album, The Pleasures explore love found, love lost, and chaos with heart and nuance. The duo – made up of Catherine Britt and Lachlan Bryan – are enjoying a flourishing musical partnership, though they come from vastly different backgrounds.
By the time Catherine was 16, the legendary Elton John had heard her promising debut album, and decided to record a duet with her, as well as introduce her to RCA Records in Nashville, to whom she was immediately signed. From there, she went on to tour with the likes of Chris Isaak and Dolly Parton, won the CMA International Artist Of The Year Award, and overcame breast cancer on top of it all.
Meanwhile Lachlan, spent his childhood amidst ballet dancers, orchestra conductors and maths teachers, and was earning a credible reputation amongst Melbourne’s rock’n’roll and alt-country scenes with his band of misfits, The Wildes. He and the band began to make international dive-bar tours – mostly in the UK and USA. It was whilst on tour in Austin, Texas that he met Catherine – and the rest is history.
Their inextricable partnership has given us a fresh but mature album in Enemy Of My Enemy.
Sara Storer – Worth Your Love
Sara Storer excels at storytelling – a truth which is never more clear than here, on her eighth studio album, Worth Your Love. The celebrated country singer has won a record-breaking twenty-one Golden Guitar Awards. With Worth Your Love, she showcases musical skill and warmth that she is so loved for.
Nominated for Album Of The Year and Contemporary Country Album Of The Year at this year’s CMA awards, and peaking at the coveted number one position on the ARIA Country charts, her latest album – her first release since 2019 – represents another milestone for Sara Storer.
The album is gentle, tender, and honest – values represented most fully by the title track, a touching duet which features Storer’s niece Sammy. Their voices melt together, showcasing both experience and innocence. Indeed, Worth Your Love was worth waiting for.
James Johnston – WHERE YOU’LL FIND ME
With his second studio album, James Johnston solidifies himself as a country upstart that you can’t help but root for. WHERE YOU’LL FIND ME is a nylon-slapping, hip-twitching, boisterous record. Following in the footsteps of The Wolfe Brothers, Johnston praises Australiana and country living, promising that those looking for him will find him “out where my granddad’s hands built a house that we call home.”
Johnston has long marked himself as one to watch ever since 2021, when his debut single Raised Like That became the fastest ever debut single by an Australian-based country artist to reach one million streams. Raised Like That was certified gold in Australia by mid-2022, making Johnston the first independent country artist to achieve the milestone in 21 years. His star has since steadily been on the rise, and with WHERE YOU’LL FIND ME – an infectiously fun release – he more than delivers.
Lewis Love – Lovesick
Lewis Love knows has proven himself to be an expert in making an audience fall for him. Only 19, and the musician has already achieved viral success. A teaser of his debut single, Can’t See The Sky, racked up more than a million times on social media before it was even released. On both Spotify and TikTok, his music has found a rabid audience. Suffice it to say, he has come a long way since he left school at age 16 and sold his Honda civic for a one-way ticket to the City of Angels.
Can’t See The Sky is a love-lorn ballad, inspired by a heart-rending break-up. The rest of the album is similarly stirring, a smattering of folk-infused country that is easy to weep along to. His voice possesses the poignancy of youthfulness starting to accrue experience. Lovesick will have you raising up your tumbler of scotch with tears in your eyes.
Imogen Clark – Choking On Fuel
As a title, Choking On Fuel evokes high-octane emotion. As a cohesive project, it more than delivers. Imogen Clark knows just how to toe the line between vulnerability and strength. A pared back, acoustic album, its sound is raw and visceral, reimagining tunes from her 2024 record The Art Of Getting Through after a break-neck year of non-stop touring.
It is an inspired effort. As a songwriter and performer, Imogen Clark is somehow simultaneously pensive and outgoing. With Choking On Fuel, Nashville-by-way-of-Sydney artist manages to capture the spirit of a live performance.
The record is buoyed by a sense of transience, and openness to what will be. Its title is borrowed from the lyric, “this is the art of choking on fuel.” Here, Clark has rendered it an art, indeed.
Sammi Palinkas – No Settlin’
Sammi Palinkas has burst onto the scene full-throttle. Empowerment is her specialty. This album’s title track reached the official Countrytown National Airplay Chart Top 50, and she followed it up with another anthemic and powerful single in the form of What This Woman Wants. It is clear that Palinkas doesn’t need anyone to tell her what to do – she is the one running the show.
Palinkas has been singing since she was three, and now, she has officially found her voice. In many ways, No Settlin’ functions as a collection of life-lessons. With muscular vocals and an assured sense of self, Palinkas rattles off what every woman, you and old, needs to hear: “There’s no settlin’ for me… No settlin’, I’m happy on my own.” Palinkas finds joy in independence, and it is intoxicating to listen to.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
