I find myself gifted the chance to review Aotearoa Rock Royalty. The great Rikki Morris is returning with his new album About Time, for which he is also touring (see elsewhere on this site for tour information). Opening track on the album, and lead single, is The Saddest Sound, written by Rikki’s equally legendary brother, the late Tex Pistol himself, Ian Morris.

This track is gorgeous. It’s haunting, melancholic and endearing. Rikki produced, engineered and mixed at Skew Whiff studio in Aucks, mastered by Don Bartley at Benchmark Mastering. I’ve made a call to use a photo of Rikki with Ian as the headline image for this review based on Rikki‘s comments in the EPK: ‘After Th’ Dudes broke up in 1980, Ian recorded a bunch of acoustic demos. He gave me a cassette tape of the songs he had recorded and I fell in love with one in particular, called The Saddest Sound. During one of the Covid lockdowns, I found the cassette whilst clearing out some boxes. After dusting off my cassette player and reminiscing over these long lost demos, I knew I had to record The Saddest Sound. I’m fairly certain it would’ve been a Dudes song, had they stayed together.’

Having five brothers of my own (all older, and much uglier) I fully get the brotherly connection. Two lads growing up with similar interests have a connection that… well… I’ll move onto the technical side of the song, shall I?

We’ve got some sweetly haunting – yes, I used the word already – guitars, all played by Rikki and laced with some cleverly balanced chorus and other effects. The keys and drums are also by the man himself, and he ties in really cohesively with bassist Mark Hughes. There’s some fabulous, warm Hammond courtesy of Grant Winterburn that drops in for a lovely solo and stays for some layering.

It’s not sugary or poppy but it is commercially viable. It’s a melancholic pop-rock track, albeit not downbeat or slow tempo, that I think Rikki captures the vibe of closest in his comment above, wherein he’s asserting that this would have been a Th’Dudes song if the band had stuck together. It just sounds so much like it would have been one of their biggies.

The single is on Bandcamp now, so go and have a listen if Rikki Morris, The Crocodiles, Tex Pistol & Rikki Morris are your thing. This isn’t a journey down Nostalgia Street however – this is a new journey into 2024’s music scene that we should all walk alongside a bona fide New Zealand music legend with.

This is a great, great song. And folks! – Rikki Morris is back.

Oh and, the count-in at the start of the single is by Ian. x