The Verlaines. Photo / Supplied
Of the original Flying Nun bands, the Verlaines - the flexible vehicle for Graeme Downes - are still the most ambitious.
Downes' lyrical depth and mercurial melodies deliver durable albums which bristle with rage rather than succumb to the comforts of age. Here in angry opener Born Again Idiot, the
protagonist talks to God who says he should have read His book but "you read Nietzsche instead, I'll catch up with you shortly after you're dead".
In the seductively jazzy On the Patches ("off the fags") Downes says there's no good argument for intelligent design "unless she's a sadist" and there's an apocalyptic gloom about the evolutionary path in Dark Riff ("time's quickening drum").
Woozy trombone in the bent ballad Diamonds and Paracetamol, about cruel infirmity, creates disconcerting unease, as do whirligig guitars and horns in the swinging Beauty is Truth.
An angry scepticism is rife ("I've grown tired of perfection"), there's barely suppressed fury at those who have pets as fashion accessories and in places there's a broad political subtext.
