Wellington indie band Dateline is the project of Katie Everingham. The band is returning with new single Choose Me, and I got chills, n’ they’re multiplyin.! No, we’re not looking at the 21st Century re-boot of Grease, it’s just me finding a way to verbalise how intense this track is. In a totally good way.

Along with band-mates Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa, Phoebe Johnson and Reuben McDonald, this is Brit-pop incarnate, and it’s a damn good 2024 update too. This is a band that really knows how to make this type of music. No two ways about that. We have some great almost dream-pop jangly guitars as we count in, turning into a distortion-laden snarl as the band really gets going. A fabulously pop/funk beat with a reasonably up-tempo time intertwined with a very heavy and rich bass, give it a Jesus & Mary Chain kind of heaviness, bordering on Shoegaze but remaining in the pop/indie genre due to Katie‘s vocal performance.

The leading lady, possibly due to the You Tubes video I watched, gives me a Sharlene Spiteri vibe. Katie‘s got a focus and intensity in her eye, and she means what she’s doing. I like no nonsense videos like this one: the band performing the track live in a session, cameras working through the band as they play, atmos-intense lighting and colour wash. It was filmed as the band recorded the single live by Cameron Cook, at Vogelmorn Hall in Brooklyn – not New York Brooklyn, Wellington Brooklyn. Way cooler!

The story behind the track is a younger Katie and an experience she had in her mid 20s. Cryptically she gives no more away. The melody and vocal performance is total indie pop with that groovy feel of so many bands of the various sub-genres that I don’t know where to begin. This is a compliment, because it’s intended to reflect that this song – and band – belongs up in lights with the rest of them. I’m thinking Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Pulp, Suede, Texas, all those rockier indie Brit-pop acts, as well as the likes of the Pumpkins, a touch of Hole, PJ Harvey, Patti Smith even. All those wonderful artists come flooding back to me when I hear quality indie pop like Dateline has just delivered.

This is definitely a live song. Festivals, their up-coming tour, oh good lord yes. Student radio and the indie channels in the likes of Germany, Poland, the UK, Ireland, they’d lap this up so get distributin’! The vid is definitely good enough for TV broadcast so fingers crossed for some Juice TV and some overseas exposure. You and I could listen to this at the gym, driving (either commute or a roadie), at a party, or an indie night at the club of your choice.

This is a very professional band. They are worth your time to check them out. As mentioned, the vid is on the You Tubes; plus the audio is on their and Flash-Trax‘s Spotty Fly playlists. Get into it.