Yahaaaaaaaarrrrr! It’s about time someone took us to Mos Eisley and the rough-ass Cantina with its no droids door policy and the most “wretched hive of scum and villainy“. It looks like this band knew to be careful… Brother Sister brings us a serving of their homage to that mid-80s funk/synth pop stuff that was…

This is a good, good band. The fabulously named Fin Rah Zel, named I assume from the powerful sorceress that helped Willow Ufgood to defeat evil queen Bavmorda in the original Willow movie, they give me the opportunity to release the inner D & D geek of old. My character classes of choice were half-Elf…

Go to a dark rave with Tāmaki Makaurau based Grecco Romank! This is pure night club music, not the sort of stuff for the faint hearted. Band members Billie Fee, Mikey Sperring and Damian Golfinopoulos have quite a CV to their names in other NZ acts, and have transferred this to Grecco Romank. We’ve got…

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…