Salad Boys
This Is Glue

The Dunedin Sound is perhaps one of the lesser-known, yet most beautiful chapters in the history of alternative and independent music. In the early eighties, almost out of nowhere, a true wave emerged from the small town of Dunedin in the Otago region of New Zealand. This wave featured bands mostly inspired by garage and jangle pop sounds, blending psychedelia with post-punk attitudes. It was a long-lasting wave, which, thanks to the legendary Flying Nun Records label founded by Roger Sheperd in 1981, spread to the United States and worldwide. Bands like the Bats, the Dead C, the Chills, the Clean, the Verlaines, and the Jean-Paul Experience were part of, have been part of, and are still part of that scene...

That sound has somehow become iconic and a point of reference for many musical realities over the years and still today. In this specific case, we're talking about a band from Christchurch, the third largest city in New Zealand and the very city where in 1981 Roger Sheperd (then simply a record store owner) founded Flying Nun Records. I'm talking about the Salad Boys, a quartet formed by Joe Sampson, Ben Dodd, Ben Woods, and Brian Feary, who released their second LP on Trouble In Mind Records on January 19th. The album is titled "This Is Glue" and indeed captures those same atmospheres and characteristics considered typical of the genre: lo-fi recordings, jingle jangle guitars, essential bass lines, and widespread use of keyboards and synthesizers.

Composed mostly of songs characterized by minimal writing and melancholic tones that might remind one of some "watercolors" by the Go-Betweens of Robert Forster and the late Grant McLennan or some moments of Yo La Tengo, when the tones become more intense ("Blown Up", "Psych Slasher", "Choking Sick", "Under The Bed"...) it is practically impossible not to sense the same energy of the Chills by Martin Phillips or the Bats (also originally from Christchurch), just to mention two fundamental bands that have released new albums in the past two years.

Probably "This Is Glue" is not an entirely original work, but we are faced with an album that sounds in an essential way and deserves not to go unnoticed among the many releases at the beginning of this year. Furthermore, old enthusiasts of the New Zealand wave, as well as listeners of bands like REM or Wilco and admirers of the lo-fi style of Robert Pollard and his Guided by Voices, will surely appreciate and love it for its beautiful simplicity.