“We go through a journey of soul, fun and pop. That happens naturally.”
Gregory and Reid met and jammed together regularly while studying music in Invercargill.
“We hadn’t discussed what direction to take,” says Gregory. “That was quite organic. When we became a group the songs made themselves.”
Nation packs a lot of sound into its songs.
The album has a subtle but distinctive Pacific flavour.
Along with Jamiroquai, Gregory cites the godfather of soul, James Brown, and the electronica-soul-drum and bass pop of New Zealand band Six60 as influences on the band’s sound, while in his vocals is the mellifluousness of Che Fu.
Pop Vulture
Pop Vulture’s first track Voodoo opens with bell-like keyboard notes, the sea sound of a cymbal swish, then the classic funk soul guitar break that announces the band’s sound and has inspired some to call Nation New Zealand’s answer to Jamiroquai.
A jazzy riff that mixes with fuzzed-up heavy metal chords almost takes the prog-rock road but there’s no time to think about it. Nation are all about dance-ability (and musicianship) and the song moves along pretty quickly with some forest bird sounds from the keyboard.
An evocative 48 second interlude called Dawn follows with a nightclub keyboard pulse opening backed with the subtle sound of crashing waves. The building chords suggest the rising sun, there is a quiet smattering of tui song, a pause and then we’re away into the full early morning sunburst of Summer.
“I’m drifting away/ away with you/ we’ll watch the world slip out of view/ like sand and sea we’ll crash between tides high and low tides high and low/drinking summer wine/ Winter we’ve enjoyed but I can’t wait for summer.”
