News Blog @ Wellington City Libraries

The staff at Wellington City Libraries, being into all things Kiwi, have come up with a list of the most underrated New Zealand bands or albums of all time.   Check these out, and let us know if you agree with our picks:

Bressa Creeting Cake by Bressa Creeting Cake
Bressa Creeting Cake were like the bastard children of The Front Lawn and Split Enz; literate, quirky, musically inventive and melodic. They wrote intricate chamber-type pop devoted to simple surreal pleasures – palm singing, Egyptian tankers, a chip that sells millions. Their sound was intricately vocal, heavy on the bass with occasional syncopated cicada!
Two of BCC went on to help form ‘Goldenhorse’ and you can feel that pop expertise, shimmer and mirrors in their work.
The reclusive Edmund Cake sits on an unreleased album somewhere waiting to be released!
Finely, weirdly, excellent.

Bleeding Star by JPS Experience
Probably the most underrated New Zealand album ever released. Forget all those other reviews claiming underrated status; this is the one. I’ll never understand why generic pop acts sell millions and these guys could hardly have afforded a pie. Seriously though, this is an absolute masterpiece. It’s all swirling indie guitars mixed with some gentle shoegaze, a hint of the overly dramatic lyrically and it’s all wrapped up with mysterious gothic undertones. There’s clearly a large uncredited debt to some more obvious British indie bands, but that’s ok, it doesn’t detract from Bleeding Star being the definitive alt-Kiwi album from the 90’s. You’ll not find a better album representing those happy days, except of course for virtually anything by the 3d’s, the Bats, the Straightjacket Fits and Bailter Space, but we’ll get to that…

Vortuna by Bailter Space
Ten years ago I met the chaps from Bailter Space. We shared a beer and a game or two of pool. We got to talking, I expressed my admiration about their latest album, and they promised to put me on the guest list for their gig the next night. Now I, filled with vicarious rock star dreams, was beside myself with joy at such an honour, until that is I turned up with my hot date to find that my name wasn’t on the list. I stopped listening to them right then and there. Still, I’m almost (kind of) over it now, so I can heartily recommend Bailter Space, who were the heaviest, the dreamiest and by far the loudest band I’ve ever seen live and Vortuna is their masterpiece (or maybe not, but it’s a damn good place to start)…

Sloth by Pumpkinhead
Christchurch was a veritable rats nest of grunge-lite and alt bands in the early 90’s; Pumpkin being one of its earliest success stories. Mix a little bit of Janes Addictions alt-L.A jangle with a dose of Seattle, Tad-like, guitars and essentially you have the basic Pumpkinhead sound. Not that they were blatant copyists, everyone has to come from somewhere, and while their influences were kind of obvious they also brought along that swampy feel of the damp, cold and grossly polluted Christchurch squat scene. Their live shows were hit and miss, but when they were on fire they were outstanding, a great mix of underground punk mixing it up with some real musical ambition and major rock riffs. They dissolved soon after this album, but for a brief time they were superstars of Chasel Street.

Gordons by Gordons
New Zealand’s very own Killing Joke. Brash, brutal and unbelievably loud, the Gordons thrashed about the country, in time becoming the complete antithesis of the ‘known’ Kiwi sound. Forget the sweet melodies of Dunedin pop or the rawk and roll of Auckland’s glam and punk scenes, the Gordons bought the filth, the grim and the decidedly unglamorous side of dirge-like rock and roll to the table. It’s no surprise they morphed into Bailter Space, there was really nowhere else for them to go. They were as solid as the Southern Range and an utterly frightening live act, jaw dropingly loud, they perched on the cusp of self destruction with every show. I glad they broke up; I’d have hated to see them slowly unravel. They were challenging, dense, frightening and brilliant.

Dead Flowers by Dead Flowers
Starting off as a second tier hair-metal band, perhaps Auckland’s answer to L.A Guns, the Dead Flowers slowly morphed into something all together more interesting over their surprisingly lengthy career. Realising that hair-metal was dead as a dodo they began to draw on a heavy ‘classic rock’ vibe, all solid Stones melodies and the obligitory Beatles harmonies, making for warmer and more welcoming albums. They were certainly not short of major talent in frontman Bryon Bell and It’s a terrible shame they died off when they were just getting interesting, successive commercial failures ended it all far to soon.

Knightshade by Knightshade
Oh man, Knightshade! The best melodic power-metal band to ever come out of Hamilton (via TePuke). Actually, they couldn’t have come from anywhere else. Infused with every boy-racer cliché, they reek of miserable lonely Saturday nights on the couch with a beer, freezing cold oil stained late night garages, and fixing up the car stereo with Trev. Knightshade were big big hair, glorious solo’s, very bad teeth, leather pants, and were quite possibly the ugliest bunch of rock-stars to ever grace the stage. I saw them in a tiny pub in the Hutt many years ago; you’d have thought they were playing Wembley Arena, awesome. Oh, sorry, the music, it’s fantastic.

Flick Y’self off y’self by Head Like a Hole
Throughout their career HLH suffered endless comparisons to Faith No More; so here’s one more. Like FNM, HLH also went out on a limb after their ’successful album’ and shook things up royally with album number two. It was a wise move, allowing them to break free of what could have been the stagnant rut of a funk-metal band. On Flick Y’self, they opened up a Pandora’s box of musical delights and tried out a whole bunch of new directions and sounds. It works wonderfully; it’s a disjointed, disorganised mess and all the better for it. Packed full of failed experiments and one of the best single releases in the history of New Zealand rock, Flick Y’self should really be compulsory listening for all New Zealand school kids, it’s the very definition of rock ‘n’ roll; dangerous, unhinged and downright filthy.

The White House by Dead C
Noise rock is an off putting term, understandably so, the whole ‘rock’ part becomes somewhat redundant after the ‘noise’ bit. On the other hand, textural and tonal directed reverb and feedback, mixed in with found sounds and post-rock experimental passages doesn’t quite so easy slip off the tongue. It’s a shame really because it does the Dead C a disservice to label them simply noise as so often happens. Theses guys are worshipped overseas as lords of discordant brilliance, and they’re yet still fairly unknown over here. Over a lengthy career they’ve built up a fascinating catalogue of fuzzy, messy and distorted guitar experimentation. If you have to start somewhere, start here, with the album which truly made them the almost global stars of the underground set.

Futureproof by Pitch Black
Certainly not New Zealand’s first electronic album by any means, but perhaps New Zealand’s first electronic album that had the confidence and swagger to mix it with the big boys and girls of the global electronica scene. There’s nothing revolutionary about Pitch Black, there’s plenty of other Kiwi dub based electronic acts, but without sounding corporate there was something altogether more professional about Futureproof that made it shine. It sounds like a band that cared; cared about what their fans are hearing, and cared about the quality of that message. No lo-fi nostalgic attempt for them, Futureproof is the sound of two men hunched down in the vault shaping a little masterpiece of sublime blips, wonderful beeps, and some awe-inspiring waves of ambient brilliance. It’s a fair number of years old now, but its aged well, the sign of a classic album no doubt.

Hellzapoppin by 3Ds
If you haven’t heard this album you’ve not only missed out on hearing one of the best Kiwi albums recorded, you’ve also missed out on one of the best lo-fi indie rock albums ever! Forget the Kiwi connection for a minute, first up, you’re dealing with an album which has been cited as one of the most influential guitar albums of the 90’s and secondly it easily measures up to any other iconic rock or punk album, from any period, and that includes Nirvanas supposedly holy trinity. For a brief three album period the 3d’s had all the potential to take on the world and win. Of course they didn’t, no headlining mid 90’s Reading festival for them, but that’s ok because I saw them in a tiny bar, when beer was cheap and it was cool to smoke; they were awful, but they were brilliantly awful no less. If you saw them too, congratulations, if you didn’t no worries, all their albums are raw little masterpieces, gritty and lo-fi enough to invoke the mighty spirits of early Stooges and innumerable Dunedin proto-punk bands.