The Clean - Mister Pop

Rating: * * *
Verdict: Enjoyable if patchy set from the Dunedin originals.

As always, the Clean are going about things in their own good time. This is the influential NZ alt-rock trio's first studio album in eight years - and only the fifth or so purpose-built long-player they have delivered in 30 years of sporadic reunions.

And though the title Mister Pop might suggest the mad glee of their early Beatnik or Tally Ho Flying Nun days, it's mostly another hazy wander through the band's languid less-is-more psychedelic side, its 10 tracks evoking the hazy summer of an imaginary sixties.

That's whether it's referencing the Beatles in In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul (the best straight-up verse-chorus track here) or sweetly asking the question Are You Really On Drugs? over a happily zonked pastoral jangle.

A few songs later Tensile breaks out the vocoder and synthesizers for a propulsive track that might as well have "Made in Germany" stamped on its bottom.

Unfortunately, much of the latter half ambles to a point where it can start to feel like an overstretched EP. However, the occasional instrumentals don't feel like padding either, whether it's the swish baroque organ-led opener Loog or the gently throbbing hoedown of Moonjumper.

It might not add up to a long-awaited classic Clean album but with its sonic quirks and its untroubled delivery, it's hard not to get caught up in Mister Pop's effortless sunny charms.

Russell Baillie