This summer, the Brisbane-based indie band Fragile Animals embarked on their first international tour when they hit Europe. “Heading into it, we’ve tried to have very little expectation of what anything could be, and it’s very hard to know what to expect,” the band’s frontwoman, Victoria Jenkins, told Post-Burnout when she spoke to us earlier this month.

“Like, our very first show was at a music festival in Dresden, Germany, and it was a three-day festival, so we were playing on the last day, and we got there in time to see all of the festival, and we took a day-trip to Prague while we were there, because it’s so close-by, and it blows our minds that a couple of hours down the road, we’re in another country and everything looks different! So, that was great!”

Despite some logistical anxieties around visas and getting thrown out of the continent for not dotting every I and crossing every T on their applications, Victoria claims that the operation ran smoothly, and that touring around Europe was much easier than in their homeland, where the expenses of plane travelling are something artists just have to get used to due to the long distances between cities.

When we spoke to Victoria, she was staying at Michael Smyth’s home in Belfast, who was promoting the Irish leg of their tour. It was the morning after their show at the Ulster Sports Club, and they were getting prepared to take the train to Dublin to headline Sin É that night.

“It was great,” Victoria said of the Belfast show. “The room was busy. Everyone was just lovely. I think that’s the weird thing; there were people we met at last night’s show who’ve followed our band through, virtually, the beginning, and it never occurred to me at the early stages… – when they’d send us messages on Instagram or whatever – …I never, at that point, thought I’d ever meet those people.

“So, to be at a show and have people come in that we’d sent CDs and tote bags to in the early days and things like that, it just blows my mind. I just think it’s not lost on us how lucky we are to be over here and actually have people who care, and just random new people.

“[Laughs] When we finished last night’s show, the first people I talked to after we walked off stage were a bunch of people right at the front, and I was like, ‘It’s so nice to be in Belfast, your place,’ and they were like, ‘We’re not from here!’  [Laughs] They’re like, ‘I’m English,’ and ‘I’m from somewhere else in Ireland,’ and I think one of them may have actually been from Dublin, and they were like, ‘We just wandered in, and thought it was great, and we’re here!’, and I was like, ‘Amazing!’

“So, we’ve had this mixture of people who knew us and intended to come, which is insane, and then I think we’re pulling a few people over as we go, so we couldn’t be happier!”

Fragile Animals began in the mid-2010s, and have been releasing music consistently since their 2017 debut EP, Light That Fades. For Victoria, it doesn’t feel like the band has been around for that long, which she partly chalks up to the COVID-19 pandemic stripping three years away from everybody.

“If I think back to how the band felt back then, and how I felt about the band back then, I don’t feel the same way,” Victoria says when reflecting on the band’s longevity. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, ten years have probably passed.’ Our basic approach to what we’re trying to do, none of that has changed, and it kind of has gone in the blink of an eye.”

When the band began, they took a lot of inspiration from the poppy textures of shoegaze, which Victoria claims isn’t that popular down under. “Where we’re from, there’s not a huge shoegaze scene,” she explains. “Like, there’s a little scene happening in Brisbane for ‘gaze bands, and then, across Australia, there’s a few notable names that pop up, but it’s not quite as well received as it is over here, which is why we’re here! [Laughs]”

Despite this, the band hit the ground running when their song “Home” from Light That Fades got heavy rotation on the largest Australian public radio station, Triple J, resulting in more opportunities. “From the beginning, we’ve always felt pleased and thankful for the success or whatever notoriety that we’ve had,” Victoria says of their status.

“Prior to this band, we’ve been working our way in other bands and doing different things for quite a while, so it’s not that it necessarily felt like some sort of overnight success, necessarily, but we’re also very aware that there are so many good bands out there that really try and work incredibly hard – work as hard as we have – and don’t get those things.

“So, I think it’s this weird mixture of whatever success you achieve, you move the goalposts and look for the next thing. We tend to be a bit on the self-deprecating side rather than the ‘Proud of ourselves’ side, so we’re kind of like, ‘Oh, yeah, if we got that, it can’t be worth that much!’ [Laughs]

“But it is really, really nice, and when you do actually take the time to stop to think about it and look at it, we’re getting our heads around being able to say, ‘Yeah, we’re proud of something like the new record.’ Like, we’ve started saying we’re kind of proud of what we’re doing. We’re getting used to it! [Laughs]”

The record Victoria is referring to is Tourist, their first EP since their debut album, Slow Motion Burial, dropped in 2023. Released on July 4^th, the EP was born after Victoria took some time off to decompress and deal with some despondency and uncertainty that she was feeling. At the beginning of 2025, the band began working on the EP’s material, and she fell in love with the results, which affirmed their persistence.  

“Probably like most bands, whatever we’re working on at the time, whatever’s the newest stuff is, tends to be what you’re most excited about,” Victoria says of crafting Tourist.

“It took us quite a while because of the pandemic and everything to get that debut record out, so by the time it came out, we were pretty familiar with those songs, and we were really keen to go and tour it, which we did.

“But I think we were very keen to do something new, and I guess, personally, I went through a bit of a patch where I was feeling pretty burnt-out in life in general and just kind of a bit fed up with things, and I think that was a big motivator for writing the new material.

“So, I think, simultaneously, we didn’t get too sentimental about our own work, and we weren’t too intimidated about following it up or anything like that, but, also, I was like, ‘I kind of need to do this, to be heading somewhere that I feel good about.’

“So, that worked kind of quickly. Normally, we take our time with recording, and there are added things. Like, this time around, we didn’t head into a studio with a producer to actually do it; we self-recorded this record, which made it something we could achieve a lot more quickly.”

The turnaround rate for Tourist was very rapid. Six months before its release, the songs hadn’t even been written yet, and on its release day, the band were on the other side of the world, performing it live!

And the coincidence of promoting a project called Tourist whileon their first international tour was not lost on Victoria. “I think when we were writing those songs, we knew that we wanted to come over here and tour,” she explains. “We wanted to do it for so long, and we were like, ‘Right, we’ll just do it. We’ll take that leap and make it happen.’

“So, I think, maybe, that was in the mindset, but then, at the same time, that actual song was not specifically related to it [Laughs] or anything like that. But I guess we just figured it worked on a few levels.

“It was so weird for me, as well, because the iconography for the release, and the album merch and stuff, are these symbols that are all related to that kind of thing, and I didn’t really know what any of them were, because they were done by an American graphic designer a little while back, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, these symbols are cool. Like, that looks cool.’ Then coming through different airports and stuff, I’m like, ‘Oh, dude, that’s that symbol, and this symbol! The suitcase with the key, that means lockers!’

“We keep seeing these symbols around, and they’re not ours; they actually, like, exist out in the world, but we’ve just kind of used them all, I guess. But, yeah, it’s been very, very cool, and we like the fact that they’ve all tied together with Tourist.”

With a more downbeat, melancholic, and, at times, gothic twist, Tourist marks a sonic departure within the band’s discography. “I think it’s good that each thing is a little bit different,” Victoria says of this change. “I guess that’s the beauty of it, I don’t really know where we’re heading now, but I know that the reason that this EP does sound that little bit different is because we did want to grow it.

“Like, we don’t like the idea of everything staying the same. It’s such a weird thing; we’re not the same people that we were two years ago, and the music that I’ve gotten into and we’ve all, individually, gotten into in the last few years, you can’t block that out as influences and things, so, inevitably, I think it’s always going to sound different on each release, which I think is great. We like that.

“So, I don’t really know where the next one’s going. I think even just driving around with the guys, and I’m listening to different things that they’re into that I hadn’t previously listened to, I’m sure that, down the track, that’s going to have an impact on how I approach music, individually. I think we’re all kind of doing that at the moment.

“So, it’ll be interesting to see where the next one goes. I think for me, personally, and I know that the guys feel the same, this newest EP is the one we’re proudest of. Like, we do feel that it’s our best work yet. And, also, I think we’re starting to come out of our shell a little bit and not care how the music will be received.

“Like, I know that sounds really weird, because we’re so appreciative of people when they do enjoy it or something like that, but I think when you’re starting out and you’ve got a career in music, there’s an element of people-pleasing that you can’t shut out, but I feel that, weirdly enough, we’re just selfish enough [Laughs] to not actually care!”

For Victoria, the EP serves asa snapshot of her time of doubt. “I think that it’s partially intentional that we have a bit of a throughline,” she says. “I think it’s also kind of almost by default, because, in writing in batches, you’re kind of almost capturing your headspace at any given moment, and, with that, there tends to be a bit of a throughline.

“So, for the LP, it was all kind of written during COVID, and it was all kind of centred around some not-so-pleasant realisations about the world and where things are headed. It was very gloomy, actually, as a headspace, and I think that that was because of what was happening in the world at that time.

“But then I think with this record, it’s definitely not written from that headspace, and it’s definitely not about the same sort of things or anything, but there is a common thread through this EP, as well, that, strictly speaking, wasn’t intentional, but it’s also quite nice if you can see something coming together and you’re like, ‘Oh, I know what this is, now,’ and you can kind of lean into it.

“So, I think it never starts with any particular intention, but as the writing goes on, you can kind of be like, ‘Yeah, I can see where this is heading.’ I think that’s how it works.”

With the new sonic freedom permitted by Tourist, the confidence to know that they can successfully tour internationally, and the wealth of inspiration from experiencing these new countries and cultures for the first time, Victoria is looking forward to what comes next for Fragile Animals.

“We’re looking to getting into writing straight away, to capture this headspace, I suppose, and see where those songs land,” she says of their future plans. “I’ve said this so many times since pretty much even the first day [Laughs] that we were away, is that I think the only thing keeping me sane going home is knowing that we’re coming back.

“So, I think there’s a real inspiration there to write new music and have a reason to come back. We’re very, very serious about doing it, and if someone told me this was a one-time thing, I couldn’t handle that. So, I know we’re going to come back. Hopefully, next year, we’ll be back. I guess the goal is to try and grow it that little bit each time.

“We’ve kind of been blown away by how many people have been at the shows this time around. Like, we had no real sense of what to expect coming here, and we’ve been very, very pleased with the level of enthusiasm and the numbers at the shows, so I think if we can just keep pushing forward, who knows where we’ll land.”

Fragile Animals’ latest EP, Tourist, is out now. You can keep up with the band through their website.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 21:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.