By RUSSELL BAILLIE
(Herald rating: * * * * )
Another local debut album, this one from the overall-wearing Auckland poprock outfit goodshirt whose DIY garden shed recording efforts have got them picked up by a major label of English origins. Which makes sense when you hear their wiry, arty, zany
tunes. Sometimes it can seem as if they've distilled the synth'n'guitar fizz of Blur's hit Girls and Boys into a whole album.
The triangular riffs of their early radio hit - and their own theme tune - Green sound cut at roughly the same hue and geometry of the triangles on the Enz's True Colours album. Or Devo's funny hats.
Yes there's something quite New Wave about a lot of it, whether it's the woozy synthesisers of Blowing Up or the serrated vocals of Place To Be.
But it still rises above the referenced points and quirk-value, care of its oddball lyrics, and warped synthesiser-friendly popcraft. And towards the second half it goes neatly subdued on the likes of the acoustic guitar-driven Sophie, the skanking instrumental Everyday, the dreamy Merrilands Domain and the strange and aching Long Day Last.
Clever, occasionally fetching pop and not the exercise in retro-irony much of it might suggest. The album's title sells itself short.
Label: Cement/EMI
