Spartacus R - When The Fever Takes Hold

Rating:

* * * *

Wellington is a weird wee town when it wants to be and this is one of the oddest musical releases to come out of it in many a year. Spartacus R conjure up a disorientating and delusional fever on this unpredictable and unique debut. Blending everything from straight blues, rock and jazz to a more warped cocktail of psychedelia, prog and avant garde, it has a similar screwy sentiment as a band like New York instrumentalists Battles but without the energised chipmunks playing the instruments.

While the spare vocals are a little twee and take some getting used to,

Fever

is odd and strangely enthralling as it moves from the romantic jaunt of cosmic singer/songwriter ditty

Synthia

, into the spooky desert slope of the title track, and on to the the fuzzed-out, high-frequency bedlam crescendo to eight-minute epic

Foxbug and Snail

.

As is often common with releases out of Wellington, there are some familiar names involved in this project, the most notable being Prebble, with two of them (Ryan and Tim) in the band and Dr Lee Prebble (Black Seeds, Phoenix Foundation) recording it with the band at The Surgery in the capital.

However, don't expect anything similar to those two bands from Spartacus R, expect something more odd yet just as appealing.

Scott Kara