One of this country’s premier blues guitarists returns with an amazing swamp blues track. Courtnay Low is the driving force behind The Unholy Reverie, and this is a lady who has chops and loves to perform. Lost At Sea is a dip into deep Southern Blues, I find myself craving a Po’Boy or some blackfish…

The ballooning success of Silcrow is reinforced by new single What I Am. The four-piece based out of Auckland is a growing force in the Aotearoa rock scene with its blend of bluesy rock and the muddy introspection of grunge. Lorenzo, Oscar, Conor and Carl are carefully crafting a sound that’s definitive of the times…

What a lovely surprise discovering such an inspirational young woman as Rosalie Norton, aka Lehali. Lehali is the village of her ancestors, so to use the name felt natural. It’s a great stage name too, and highlights the Pacifica vibe to the music. Onto that. Company is a lilting, warm ode to one’s friends and…

Michèle Ducray is back! I adore this performer and her uncompromising individuality. Michèle is back with Madame, a genuinely sinister yet undeniably poppy and commercially viable synth pop number. Dark and menacing, the melody and demeanour of the artist put me in mind of the spider singing to the fly – and lo and behold…

Musician, producer, DJ and more, Te Whanganui-a-Tara based Mia Kelly is the artist behind Japes. This is deeply immersed in the bedsitter world of introspection and thought deviations into worlds coloured by shades of grey only seen from the mind’s eye of those who inhabit the inside of their own heads more often than they…

Tāmaki Makaurau’s Psycho Gab, the neo-jazz 5 piece that got together during the depths of the pandemic, returns with Pianomen. Very much in the fey, acid jazz vein, this is a Rattlesnake. One of those catchy yet not sugary numbers that gets you due to being just the right tone of menacing. Great. Starting with…

Man I do love Swerve City. These Auckland based alt-metal rockers are so imaginative and they have the chops to deliver. New single Good Enough echoes insecurities and the expectations of others that prey on our minds and bind us in coils of mental chains. Heavy as all hell with some resonant riffing, subtly laced…

Invercargill rockers Theorem return with new single Bridges. The band has been on hiatus for a decade, and now we get more, yay! Consisting of John Ward on guitar and vocals, Josh Hillman on bass and vocals, and Dan Harrison on drums, these Smokefree RockQuest alumni from the deep South of Aotearoa have crafted a…

And Hawkes Bay’s finest returns with new single Learn To Crawl. A song guitarist Charlie Wallace says is about uncovering the true nature of people you believed were other than they turned out to be, this diverges somewhat from their previous numbers in that it’s a more restrained tempo, with a more temperate mix. The…

Pōneke’s Maxine Macaulay is the force behind creative indie act Goodnight My Darling. This up and coming act is making waves across the country, and garnering some serious attention. New single Ruby is a good example of why. We have a soft tempo number here, driven by understated acoustic guitars complemented by a somewhat funky…