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.