The feelers: Playground Battle

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald rating: * * *

The third album by the one-time very big things of New Zealand rock finds them delivering some of the best songs of their career, but letting themselves down in the long run.

The title track and single is a lush, harmony-soaked slab of mid-tempo muscular pop-rock and there are a few other tracks where the band excel themselves in the tune department.

However, as on earlier offerings, what trips this up is the ever-earnest delivery of songs which seem to have a fixation on military jargon in their titles and reliance on you-me/love-hate/happy-sad/light-dark/laughter-tears contrasts.

And the less-than-adventurous arrangements don't help either.

Especially on songs such as the hard-riffed throwaways Larger than Life and Rain which remind that they're a better pop band than a rock one.

But when in grand jangle mode and on the occasional ballad, Playground Battle shows the feelers have the ability to occasionally rise above their own ordinariness.

(Warner)