Betchadupa: The Alphabetchadupa

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

As we've pointed out in these pages recently, betchadupa face something of an uphill battle, locally at least, against an assumption that their progress thus far is due to a combo of genetic predisposition.

After all, singer-songwriter and guitarist Liam Finn is, of course, the offspring of New Zealand's most famous musical family.

But what this scrappy wonder of a debut shows most, as it swings from punk-fuzzy to Fabs-folky, is just how good a band betchadupa are. One which can shift, as they do at the midpoint of this album, with ease from the daydream balladry of Rain to the bratty, arty punk of Filthy McNasty then back to the harmony-laden extended psychedelic swirls of Life Will Be the Same and then the slow-fused Feed The Dogs.

They've also managed to make those gear-shifts, and what sounds like a studio nous beyond their years, add up to a mostly cohesive album. One which provokes the notion that if we were to start talking musical DNA, it's almost too easy to peg it on Finn's elders.

Sure, there are vocal similarities, especially when doubled up with a harmony. And, like the old-timers, you can frequently hear a trace of Beatles, but their Fabs' influences are strained through being teenagers who grew up in the noisy Nirvana-ed 90s.

And ones who are smart enough to think that for all their twin-guitar fuzzbox-stompers, it's okay to turn down too and keep some songs sounding like they haven't moved far out of the bedroom in which they were written.

If there's a drawback to Alphabetchadupa, it's some occasionally diffuse lyrics which leave one or two songs needing that extra something to be truly memorable.

But their combo of youthful exuberance and musical ambition makes Alphabetchadupa a highly impressive debut.

Label: Flying Nun