Australians, brace yourselves. There is a sonic prehistoric storm brewing in the underground, and it’s about to stomp its way straight through your speakers.
If you think you’ve heard everything the heavy music landscape has to offer, think again. Enter Mapel’s Pet Dinosaur, a towering, genre-bending anomaly that has been steadily mutating in the shadows, ready to unleash their monstrous debut EP Childs Play upon an unsuspecting world. This isn’t just another generic release dropping into an oversaturated market; this is a calculated sonic assault that fuses bone-crushing riffs, Jurassic-sized grooves, and an unpredictable, wild energy that feels both prehistoric and dangerously ahead of its time. It’s heavy, it’s unhinged, and it’s exactly what the alternative scene needs right now.
In less than 12 months, Maple’s Pet Dinosaur have gone from uploading DIY videos online to becoming one of the country’s most talked-about emerging artists. Blending heavy ’90s alt-metal riffs, soaring emotive vocals, razor-sharp lyricism and a warped VHS-horror aesthetic, Maple has carved out a sound and identity entirely her own.
Her breakthrough arrived in August 2025 when a zero-budget music video for debut single lego, filmed on a Ring doorbell camera, exploded across social media. The clip became the most-viewed Instagram music video reel ever by an Australian-born artist, generating more than 60 million views on the platform, alongside over 1 million TikTok likes and millions more views across YouTube. Building on the success of lego, Maple used her follow-up single chorus to secure live opportunities, quickly establishing herself as a formidable new talent on stage.
With Child’s Play out on October 30, we sat down for a no-holds-barred chat for HEAVY to pull back the curtain on the madness. Check it out.
