Major Stars - Distant Effects

Major Stars

Distant Effects

(Squealer, 2002)

 For unfettered wah-abuse, Wayne Rogers is always a name to look out for.  When not making amp's smoke, he ran the Boston record store/label Twisted Village (sadly closed in late 2010) with partner Kate Biggar, also a fantastic "set the control's for the heart of the sun" guitar. Together they have a serious back catalogue of heavy lysergic jams, in the bands Crystalized Movements, Vermonster, BORB (which stands for, are you ready... Bongload's Of Righteous Boo!), and Magic Hour. On Distant Effects Wayne and Kate are joined by the rhythm section of bassist Tom Leonard (if your band was on the Twisted Village label Tom has probably been a member at some stage!) and drummer Dave Lynch (Vermonster), and over the 4 tracks and 30 odd minutes, the band just slay. Byron 'Disco' Coley was, back-in-the-day a heavy Vermonster-head, saying of their Spirit Of Yma album, "for lo-fi splatter, this is the max"; Distant Effects is another Wayne Rogers synapse fryer. On closer 'Elephant', clocking in at a mere microgram under 15 minutes, the rhythm section lay back, letting the guitars fire off shards of noise and smears of feedback and drone... seriously cool shit.

The Bats - Free All Monsters

The Bats                   

Free All The Monsters

(Flying Nun, 2011)

A new Bats album is the musical equivalent of those first few days when you're positive summer is on its way. Bob Scott and band have a way with melody, an ability to lift their 3 minute guitar pop gems up into the sublime. That the album is being released by Roger Shepherd on a re-activated Flying Nun just makes it so much sweeter. Recorded by Dale Cotton (HDU, Subliminals et al), Free All The Monsters has a beautiful spacious sound.  The songs themselves are wondrous in their simplicity, with such an air of freshness and energy, like a young band's debut, not a band coming up on their 30th anniversary with a massive back catalogue to lean on. The tunes rip by with a back-beat so urgent and insistent that you want to get up and move, verses you can't help but hum, choruses you'll want to shout out loud. In a just world the Bats would be chart toppers and considered part of the NZ music main-stream along side the Finns and Dave Dobbyn... still, being a bit selfish I like that they're still a little bit secret, something special we can share, just you and me.