David Kilgour: Frozen Orange

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

David Kilgour, now approaching 25 years strapped to his guitar, remains one of New Zealand rock's lower-profile national treasures. He's now up to his fifth solo album, which outstrips the output of his occasionally reunited old band, the Clean.

Frozen Orange is also - quite literally - a departure from his previous sets. Much of it was recorded in Nashville last year, backed by members of American alt-country orchestra Lambchop, who he had supported on tour, and overseen by the band's regular producer Mark Nevers.

The pleasing result is a Kilgour album less dependent on his trademark guitar excursions for its sonic thrills, and far more richly textured than its relatively spartan immediate predecessor, 2002's A Feather In The Engine.

The songs, too, are more full-bodied affairs of airy tunes and languid moods, recalling everything from Syd Barrett-psychedelic pop (opener The Waltz), the Go-Betweens (Gold in Sound) to former Flying Nun labelmates the Able Tasmans (Rocket).

There's a little discernible Nashville influence in the front-porch finger-pickin' of the title track and the twang of Everybody's On a Ride. But it's all still identifiably Kilgour, a man still able to find vitality in three-chord na-na-na pop songs (Living in Space, which accelerates neatly into an epic groove after its indelible sunny chorus) and in those artful guitar jangles. He sounds in good company here and his fifth is quite the symphony.

Label: Arch Hill