Mestar: Porcupine

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

Continuing in a NZ Music month-friendly vein, the second album from Dunedin-bred trio Mestar shows that they should be considered - alongside Auckland's betchadupa, Pluto and goodshirt - as yet another band of vivid pop imagination and creative rock'n'roll urges.

Porcupine's dozen tracks neatly balance three-piece guitar-fired, hook-and-harmony-heavy numbers such as the lead tracks Ovieneter and Jitter with adventurous sonic wanderings like the electro-beat powered Journey (featuring guitar wig-out by HDU's Tristan Dingemans and guest voice of Cloudboy's Demarnia Lloyd) and the squalling Land of Dreams.

Wasn't too taken with the near-parody folk psychedelia of Bumbletree or Fairytale ("the porcupine needs some turpentine to shine" being just one of those lines that stands out for the wrong reasons).

But the quite lovely Nick Drake-esque semi-acoustic Starry Eyes makes up for it among the album's quieter offerings.

Elsewhere they can resemble modern echoes of Dunedin ancestors the Chills (especially Rock'n'Roll Word) or Sneaky Feelings, while sounding like one of the more vital pop-rock outfits to come out of our southern climes in quite some time.

Label: Yellow Eye