Someone has to say it, so . . . Trick Mammoth - described as "a flower cult pop band from Dunedin, New Zealand", which presumes an international audience - rarely rise above a very low threshold for originality.
Especially for anyone who heard Look Blue Go Purple/Sneaky Feelings/Britain's the Sundays and all those other pop bands lighting up the indie/middleweight-pop/jangle guitar genre decades ago.
So it's hard to get excited about this unmemorably polite and familiar debut from a band that you might conclude should leave home to discover the realities of this country, let alone the world.
It's nice to hear them suddenly drink a sweet short-back and find a sugar-rush sometimes. But really, when this attempts to be something other than bland alt-pop it also fails on every count. Someone has to say it, so . .. back to the Dunedin flat. As so many Brit-comedians have said: "Bludddy stoodents".
If Trick Mammoth aren't students they should wonder why they sound like self-obsessed, boring flatmates. They are nice and inoffensive and okay ... but should stop working the same old chords. And just do the dishes.
