Album cover for 'Group Hug'. Photo / Supplied
From the literary suggestion of the band name and the chief songwriter here - Damien Wilkins - you could guess at some serious lyrical chops. Wilkins is founding editor of the literary magazine Sport, and teaches creative writing at Victoria University.
He also has some small music credentials though. In
the early 80s he was in The Jonahs, who once opened for The Chills.
But the Close Readers' indie.pop/alt.country sound (with debts to early 70s Neil Young and 80s Flying Nun in many places) doesn't sound the work of dilettantes.
The disturbing Lake Alice (which recalls Sneaky Feelings' jangle pop) is about the psychiatric hospital ("Have you ever been charmed/harmed by the same person in the space of an hour?") and Okay at the end explores similar territory of emotional dysfunction ("You are not the worst we've seen today").
Between these are the increasingly dark Elton John (peeled off from Young/Crazy Horse and referring to songs by Elton playing repeatedly) and the gripping but eerie Iris DeMent ("by accident we must have killed you") where an album by American singer DeMent reminds of the incident.
