KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * * * *
The debut album by this Wellington quintet is so shy and low-key it got lost for months in the bottom of my desk. But recently it popped up and its nine strange, slow songs soon proved a disarming repeat-play whole.
It's an album that sits somewhere previously unoccupied on the capital city's music spectrum, between the great-of-voice, slight-of-lyric soul practitioners and the indie-ironic art-popsters.
True, they might be a bit closer to the Phoenix Foundation end of the spread - they, too, can sound like a country band playing Pink Floyd on the likes of Back Home and All the Glamour.
But they rock persuasively too, doing early Radiohead things to the quietly anthemic Rob the Till and Advertisement for a Pacemaker before throwing in a growling gothic blues on Tooth And Nail, on which frontman-lyricist Robin Hinkley shows an intriguing disdain for the legal profession. Actually it's his bittersweet words that provide much of the x-factor, right from the brilliant soul-shaped opener Fires Keep Burning. Between that and the dreamy One True Friend (one of two songs by guitarist and former Stereobus-er Jason Fa'afoi) Good Laika - named after the first dog in space - seem to have created an accidental classic on their debut. Go find it and keep it somewhere safe.
Label: Good Laika Music
Verdict: Wellington soul-rock outfit's astoundingly good first outing
