Melbourne's brand new heavy punk four piece, Internet Romance have released their debut single 'My Dog's A Liar'.
It's a sludgy, fuzz-soaked, head-banging, stoner rock-leaning anthem, and the first taste of what's expected to be an exciting 2026 for the band. They'll officially launch the song in Melbourne on Friday (16 January).
Ahead of the show, Internet Romance's husband and wife duo, frontwoman Tilly Abdallah and guitarist Harris Abdallah, share the band's history.
As the name suggests, the four members of Internet Romance connected online before meeting for the first time to jam.
"When I first met Dan [Murphy, bassist], he rocked up with just thongs, a singlet and shorts and a gig bag with a bass in it," Harris laughs remembering.
"Me being so judgy. Oh, man. Like, let's see because he didn't even have an amp, he had to borrow an amp. He started slapping while tuning and warming up as he was talking to me. Straight away I was like, 'oh sh.t, this guy can play'.
"Throughout the session whilst we were just talking, his personality was a match of his playing. He was just so funny, so easy to talk to, so down to earth. Same with Kayne [Smith, drummer], it was almost destiny, the way that everyone's personality and willingness to work and just. . . no ego at all."
'My Dog's A Liar' is inspired by Tilly and Harris' dog, Bentley. "He's a sausage dog that has a lot of attitude," declares Tilly.
"Quite often he has this way of faking that he hasn't had his dinner. Normally when we feed him he likes to do circles and he kind of comes and scratches you and wants to be fed. . . even after you've just fed him.
"We always say, he's a liar, like we just go, 'oh, you're lying', like 'what are you always doing that for?' Then [the song] kind of stemmed from there.
"It was kind of heavily influenced – for this song in particular – by the Viagra Boys. I like the way they bring fiction into their writing and in this example in particular, I really like the juxtaposition of a cute little dog being a really sinister, evil character. It's kind of a cheeky take on that. What if Bentley was this evil mobster? A human taking on the world."
"An absolutely sociopathic human!" Harris chimes in. "Yeah, dealing with cartels and burning buildings down, robbing banks and stealing money from his family."
The single was recorded and produced by Callan Orr (Avalanche Studios) who has worked with bands like Stepson, Blood Command and Make Them Suffer as well as being guitarist for Australian metalcore icons, Dream On Dreamer.
"He was an absolute wizard to watch," Harris says with admiration. "It was phenomenal to watch him work. He's so highly skilled and makes it look so easy."
"Yeah," agrees Tilly, "but it was a funny thing, I think the pairing of us is quite unique because we are a bit more gritty and we do have a bit more of that raw sound naturally.
"So we had to pull things back a little bit in the studio, which I think is unique for Callan as well because he is used to working with people in that metalcore, heavily-produced sound and ours is a bit more raw and rough."
Internet Romance launch their new single at The Workers Club (Melbourne) on 16 January.
