(Antenna/Virgin)
Herald rating: * * *
Review: Russell Baillie
Long-serving Auckland outfit Eye Tv have been going through a bit of a purple patch lately. After years of moody pop-rock albums just this side of arty, they've scored a couple of local hits in the run-up to this one - the infectiously summery foot-tapper Just The Way It Is and the dreamy ballad One Day Ahead - which might seem to set them up for their most accessible album yet.
It's certainly that, with a warmer, groovier, more immediate sound, partly care of new keyboardist Grant Winterburn and the outside-the-square approach of dance music producer Simon Holloway.
There's more of that summery mood from the get-go with the Beach Boys-ish theme tune The TV, The Doo Song, Just the Way It Is and the slightly soul-shaped Whatever You Do before One Day Ahead provides a bit of an anthemic show-stopper.
And a few tracks later, Worse for Wear provides another slice of elegant melancholy with its affecting lyric.
However, the band's urges to let it all hang out aren't totally convincing, especially on Foggy Notion (an excursion into swampy Bad Seeds territory), Deja Vu (which shows a hitherto undetected disco influence), Hangdog (Latin-rock) and Soul Train (with its cod-soul chorus that comes on a bit, well, Style Council, frankly.)
So a bit of a mixed brand new bag, all up. Good when it's good, but latter-stage stylistic tangents tend to dampen its initial spark.
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