It’s time for another Friday Five!  This week we’re looking at our favorite freshly imported bands, hailing from the UK, Australia and even New Zealand.

1. The Vamps
Shout out to Ciara Bravo for introducing us to The Vamps about a year ago on Twitter!  We clicked on the video for “Can We Dance” and loved their fun sound and video.  They recently had a sold out show at NYC’s Gramercy Theatre, their first US headlining show ever.  Their debut album will be released on April 14th in the UK.  We’re still waiting on a US release date, but we hear The Vamps will be back stateside in May!  Stay tuned for more details.  You can get their single, “Wildheart,” on iTunes now!

2. The Strypes
We just discovered The Strypes last week, when we randomly decided to look them up after seeing them in a BBM ad in Rolling Stone.    The quartet hails from Ireland, and although they are just 16-18 years old, their music sounds way beyond their years.   They remind us of acts like The Hives and The Strokes, and draw their influences from The Yardbirds and early Rolling Stones.  Of course, we realized that we missed their sold out show at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom by a mere 5 days.  We hope they’ll be back soon!   They just booked a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman, and their debut album, “Snapshot,” was just released in the US on March 18th.  Download it now on iTunes or Amazon!

3. 5SOS
As said on last week’s New Girl, “Are you Australian, or from heaven?”  5SOS hails from Australia, and sold out their first US headlining tour in a matter of minutes.  The Stars, Stripes and Maple Syrup Tour kicks off in April! With influences (and friends) like All Time Low, Green Day, and Blink-182, 5SOS are definitely the pop punk band we’ve been looking for since 2008.  We can only hope they strike gold in America! We think that pop punk is more about how you view life and less about your melodies and bass lines. The common thread and bottom line: they don’t take life too seriously and sometimes (read: 82% of the time) it’s totally okay to act like you’re 17 and hear “You should start acting your age” from your friends…to which you should always answer “What’s my age again?”

4. Bastille
This UK rock band have been making a huge splash Stateside. Their fourth single, “Pompeii” has been taking over the radio, spawning covers left and right. With a reissue of their debut album, Bastille are poised to be the big rock group for 2014. The band start a US spring tour in three days, starting in Chicago and ending their run at The Governors Ball in NYC in June. Get all the dates HERE and pick up a copy of “Bad Blood” on iTunes now!

5.  Titanium
Otherwise known as New Zealand’s First Boy Band.  Feeling left out of the fine world of  boy bands, a NZ Radio Station, The Edge, held a competition to form the country’s first.   Contestants went through a “boy band bootcamp,” where they practiced their dance moves, harmonies, and likely saying their band name in unison.  Titanium later broke a record by being the first act in New Zealand to have 3 singles in the Top 40 at the same time – just shows you how deprived they were of the magic of the boy band!  And we’re talking legit boy bands here.  Titanium even hooked up with America’s boy band, Big Time Rush, to write a few songs for their album.  We’re still holding out for a Titanium / Big Time Rush tour in the US!

Bonus:  Flight of the Conchords, because it’s impossible to write about the music of New Zealand without thinking of the country’s “almost award winning 4th most popular folk music duo.”