​​​​“This Year’s Modern” is the debut album from Blue Mountains-based troubadour Gavin Bowles. Following on from the single releases of “The Daily Grind” and “Apartmentality”, “This Year’s Modern” could not come at a more poignant time. Written during a year of urban apartment bliss, financial struggles and on a steady diet of beer and coffee, “This Year’s Modern” encapsulates the many moods, quandaries and adversities one might face as a young, modern ne'er-do-well and takes aim at the frivolousness of life in 2020, but not without having a little fun in the process. Musically the songs bounce between the frenetic energy of opener “Modern Rage”, the slinky groove of “Apartmentality” and the rockabilly swagger of “Slave”. “This Years Modern” is a unique blend of indie rock, rockabilly and power pop styles (driven by backing band ‘The Distractions’) and ponders how to cope in the modern world, always with a guitar lick and smirk in tow. Out now on Stranger Than Fiction Records.

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"This album is a winner. An upbeat and happy chronicle of 2020 that has complete jive-ability to it. Fun, frenetic, funky and flagrantly ignoring the challenges we all faced this year by producing a positive soundtrack for moving into the party season, as if it never happened." - The Music Producer

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"Gavin's music recalls an era when music was intelligent, but also fun and exciting." - Blue Mountains Live

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"Have you ever asked what happens when ‘rock kids’ grow up? This is what Gavin Bowles attacks with his latest album, “This Year’s Modern”. Lyrically, this album speaks about all those little frustrations modern-day life brings, like "waiting for change when everything stays the same", which sounds like a heavy dose of existential dread, but like all millennials wondering how they’re going to get onto the property ladder, Gavin has a sense of humour, shrugs off the doldrums and orders another latte. Songs like "Apartmentality”, “Slave”, “The Daily Grind” and ‘Ships in the Night” paint a rich story of living and working today using very slick, intelligent and catchy writing. This is thinking man’s rock’n’roll, with every track worth taking note of what Gavin is singing about." - Music In The Mountains