A bolder, more strident, indie-rock urgency of style by the New Zealand quartet previously known more for dream pop, particularly front-loading this fifth LP with a pacier, spikier material in their decade-long career. There are echoes of New Order with the bass and guitars of Josh Burgess and Charlie Ryder twang with resonance and bring a Peter Hook-ish dynamism of sound and energy to riffs, especially on opener Cross My Heart And Hope To Die (“You’re trying not to crash / An itch you need to scratch”) then Bashville on the Sugar, with furiously fast drumming by Olivia Campion, while Christie Simpson brings a deadpan delivery on the latter, summoning a flurry of images and feelings as the track fabulously recreates the sights and sounds of locking eyes with an ex in a underground station: “Listened to the screaming from the curves in the tracks / The brakes they burn when they weave between our verbal gaps.” It’s a fabulous evocative number. The powerful Drag begins as a slower, at first more menacing, bursting then into a fusion of noise rock and voluminous dream pop, Simpson drolly touching on ADHD diagnosis and “Take your medication (Still have to force yourself)”. Blister brings pacy, loud, swaggering punk-pop with a huge singalong chorus and parallel guitar riff all about bittersweet love with talky follow-up: “Gimme a blister Damn it I miss ya /Calling it even / Calling it quits.” Mid-album Phoebe’s Song is a touching, melancholic, wistful shimmering acoustic sound breaking into shoegaze pop and a touching love song. Cowboy Without A Clue has a simple, catchy beat and high-pitched bell and an entertaining sitar-sound solo. The second half of the album mellows somewhat with dreamier pop, from Chicago 2am to Judgement Day, the very gentle lyrics and acoustic sound of Did You See Her?, 95’s slow, woozy disorientating homesickness and delicate balance of sounds and finally the pensive, rich, atmospheric, melancholy Waiting for the Cards to Fall, which mourns a relationship that’s run dry, but is painfully not yet over. A rich texture of sounds and complex emotions expanding the band’s range with highly impressive results echoing the 1990s with their own original twist. Out on Nettwerk Records.
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