New albums by Lucid 3 and The Brunettes

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald ratings:


Lucid 3 * * * *


The Brunettes * * * *

It feels like stock-taking time on the New Zealand music scene. The judging for the late-arriving New Zealand Music Awards has started with dozens of us pundits picking from a strangely elongated 18-month qualifying period. The b.net award nominations came out this week, too.

Meanwhile, there's a fair few New Zealand albums coming down the pipe in the natural lull between the end of summer and the start of the major label blockbuster season heading towards Christmas.

The second albums from Auckland outfits Lucid 3 and the Brunettes are part of the gathering avalanche.

They aren't bands you'd probably see playing a double-header at the Kings Arms together. But they do have stuff in common.

Yes they both have female voices: Victoria Girling-Butcher fronts Lucid 3 while Heather Mansfield is half of the Brunettes duet-pop with Jonathan Bree.

But there's more. Girling-Butcher sings of her affection for her wireless on single AM Radio, while the Brunettes can sound like they exist in a retro-world of cheese-grate microphones, glowing valves and YA call signs.

But here's what makes both these sophomore albums so good and sets them apart from so many of the groups of proficient young men cluttering up those aforementioned nomination lists.

Not only are both albums a step up on their predecessors, they show bands with the confidence to be true outsiders. Musically, they're both conventionally unconventional. They both care about lyrics and making stuff that sounds old sound vital again.

Oh and maybe it's the feminine influence but what also sets the Lucid 3 and the Brunettes (the Placid 2?) apart is they both come with more than a faint whiff of sex.

For the Brunettes, though, that means a song such as Whale in the Sand, a hilarious ode to premature ejaculation that begs those Puppetry of the Penis guys to somehow work it into their next show.

But overall, it's hardly the stuff of the faux-naive bubblegum pop the Brunettes have been pegged with from their earlier album and EPs.

Mars Loves Venus comes after an initial jaunt Up Over and maybe the exposure to the big wide world has made them focus on the tunes more than just the punchlines and pre-digital sonic details.

Though the album - recorded in Heather's parents' garage and various other bedrooms Jonathan occupied throughout 2003 - is resplendent in ambitious touches and a sense of scale that suggests this could be the long lost tapes of some Phil Spector sessions while holidaying on Pakatoa Island back in 1965. Or something like that.

Thankfully most of the songs are infectious for their melodies and wry wit, even if the op-shop stylings are the first things you notice.

That's especially so of Loopy Loopy Love, the gently rockin' Polyester Meets Acetate and the B52s-ish Bestfriend Envy.

They are balanced by a couple of dreamy bittersweet numbers like the amusingly autobiographical These Things Take Time, as well as You Beautiful Militant, No Regrets, and the best use of a banjo, possibly ever, on a New Zealand pop album on Your Heart Dies.

The end result is an album that rises above its own pronounced sense of niftiness into something strangely beautiful.

And in Bree and Mansfield we've got our own Jack and Meg White. They may be quieter, but they dress better and have much nicer manners.

The mystery of the Lucid 3 is why some major label hasn't picked them up and had their way with them. Maybe the problem is the marketing department figuring out the divide between Girling-Butcher singer-songwriter and Lucid 3, a band of particularly sinuous rhythm section in bassist/multi-instrumentalist Marcus Lawson and drummer-producer Derek Metivier.

The results on the second album strongly suggest they are a band best left to their own devices in the studio, with many of the 11 tracks showing a brilliant and cool restraint in their arrangements, neatly framing Girling-Butcher's airy (but not fairy) voice.

They are a band which lean towards blues, funk and textures of a rootsy nature, but they thankfully don't make a crutch of it. And as they showed on their impressive 2002 debut, they do like to chuck in the occasional electronic extras to their grooves. So they sound like a band who have a better swing to the hips than most.

Combined with Girling-Butcher's voice on her often oblique but intriguing lyrics, the result is something quite alluring.

What makes All Moments Leading to This so captivating though is the run of songs up its front end. That includes opening track West, with its mix of reggae backbeat and dreampop chorus, the low-swinging blues-funk of Stirring, and the insistent groove and hook of Pitch Jumping, while the torch tune of Precious Ace seems to be about the band's struggle as musical outsiders and the title track comes delivered as a heart-stopping ballad.

After the aforementioned AM Radio, the final lap isn't quite as strong as the opening ones, not helped by the last track Sergio being a slow-fused dub variation on Precious Ace.

But Lucid 3's number 2 is well-named. This sounds like their moment.