NZ SINGLES

Rip It Up, Issue 225, 1 May 1996, Page 34

NZ SINGLES

MARTIN PHILLIPPS & THE CHILLS Surrounded

CD Single (Flying Nun) The wide-eyed, optimistic pop of ‘Surrounded’ is pleasing enough, but a lame choice Tor a single, lacking the instant hooks of other Sunburnt tracks ‘New Millennium’, and in particular ‘Dreams Are Free’ — which is a killer tune. The brisk ‘Friends Again’ sounds though it was written back-to-back with ‘Rolling Moon’, and is followed by ‘Stupid Way To Go’ and ‘Yabba Dabba Do’, two unadventurous, almost indistinguishable pop throwaways, that Martin surely can’t dwell too long over.

GARAGELAND Beelines To Heaven CD Single (Flying Nun) At Squid Bar last February, Mr Phillipps leaned over and sang the chorus of ‘Different Drum’ (a Mike Nesmith song made famous by the Stone Ponys) in my ear when Garageland played ‘Beelines To Heaven’, and he’s correct, they are remarkably similar in vocal melody and chord progressions. ‘Beelines...’ glides on a sweet 60s-style harmonic melody that’s catchiness guarantees them yet another hit at Student Radio, and deserves a wider audience. ‘Bus Stops’ is cleverly fragile, yet grand at the same time, while the stretched and tortured heart-breaker ‘Cut It Out’ (“What I am I gonna do with this love for you?”) reaches ‘phenomenal’ territory. A heavily reverbed version of ‘Bus Stops’ called ‘Bus Trips’, rounds off a sublime release, that makes me even more fucked off my Garageland tshirt shrunk in the wash.

LOVES UGLY CHILDREN Suck CD Single (Flying Nun) With the London-recorded ‘Suck’ four-track single, Loves Ugly Children tear away screaming from their palatable pop. past, and have a calculated stab at sounding like bogan pop rockers, especially on ‘Rock-Pig’ and the

excessively long ‘Destroy The City’ (propelled by a choice Lemmy-like bass riff). ‘Suck’ itself, boasts the colourful, screaming guitar dynamics of Simon McClaren, interspersed with roaring gat riffs, and feels more like the ‘Personal World’-era LUC that I like, but overall, and with the inclusion of the stop/start speedster ‘Heading South’, I’d prefer not to go back tor seconds.

SUPERETTE Touch Me CD Single (Flying Nun) Always a winner in Superette’s sometimes charisma-free live shows, ‘Touch Me’ chugs by on an infectious Ben Howe bass riff, and marks the singing debut of drummer Greta Anderson, adding her sugary vocals to those belonging to Dave Mulcahy. ‘Catacombs’ recalls the JPSE’s more edgy, uneasy listening outings, and the tension-filled ‘Cheezel’, could possibly inspire fist-in-the-air-type rock antics. Also here is the demo version of ‘Saskatchewan’.

MUCKHOLE Where’s The Corndogs? CD EP (Felix) FUTURE STUPID Future Stupid CD EP (Felix) The Muckhole and Future Stupid EPs are the first two releases on the new Auckland indie Felix, an off-shoot of the Wildside label. Muckhole are heavily influenced by the DC hardcore scene, and show no mercy when unveiling their brand of speedy melodic pop. Where’s the Corndogs?, features ‘Overdrive’ and ‘Subterfuge’, originally released on cassette last December, plus the Husker Du-ish ‘Don’t Wanna Know You’, and the EPs top moment, the 'Muckhole Theme Song’, an intensely powerful blast of pop that is everything that’s magic about rock ‘n’ roll. A pure classic. Future Stupid take a more dense, brutal approach to rock, that at times

(‘ln The Basement’, ‘Big Dumb Future’) is reminiscent of the more lumbering and pointless side of White Zombie. But when singer/guitarist Tony Hallum injects a dose of pummelling melody into the mix, as on ‘Shovel’, ‘Rough Us Guts’, and the bFM fave ‘Shit Biscuit’, they make perfect sense.

THORAZINE SHUFFLE An Affair CD Single (Chronic) If Thorazine Shuffle’s debut single was a library book etc... ‘An Affair’ certainly isn’t the first tune to have a series of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’s in the chorus. At the core, it’s a fine, memorable pop song, though I still view it as tarnished by overplaying in the drumming department, a prerequisite in the early days of Second Child, but a less busy approach would seem more suited to ‘An Affair”s simple structure. More impacting is the buzz saw pop of (the miles too long) ‘Losing You’, where vocals and guitars are left with room to spread out. Closing is the alternatively intricate and thrashy, ‘Happy Camper’.

ANNIE CRUMMER State Of Grace CD Single (Warners) The next two months will provide the perfect opportunity for watching a record company hype machine working at full throttle. Annie Crummer and her forthcoming album Seventh Wave will be everywhere. ‘State Of Grace’ is the first offering, a slick, feel-good, but ultimately forgettable, vocal epic. In ‘the biz’, track two ‘Wisehead’ is known as an AOR ballad. If the cap fits...

SALON KITTY Salon Kitty Cassette EP (Kittylitter) Pumpkinhead’s Jason Peters keeps the tight, primal beats happening on Salon Kitty’s debut release, that was recorded and mixed in three hours at Christchurch studio, Tandem. Salon Kitty delve below the belt to dredge up a sleazy blues/rock hybrid that celebrates filthy slabs of guitar and bass, and a vocalist whose every utterance originates in his bowel. And thank god one NZ band has the intestinal fortitude to ask the tough, probing questions; ‘Whatever Happened to Rico Tubbs?’. Write to 47 Haslam Crescent, Hoonhay, Christchurch.

JOHN RUSSELL