True evergreens

Albums from Christchurch-bred acts with 40-plus years of recording behind them.

- BY GRAHAM REID

CORNER COMING UP
by The Bats

The reliable Bats, one of the world's most stable lineups – Robert Scott, Kaye Woodward, Paul Kean and Malcolm Grant together since 1982 – embedded their early folk-jangle songs Made Up in Blue, Block of Wood, North By North and Smoking Her Wings in a generation's autobiographies.

However more expansive recent albums – notably Free All The Monsters (2011) and The Deep Set (2017) – have been among their best, their musicianship so assured they released the instrumental version of 2020's Foothills as Foothills Sans Voix.

On this 11th album they again pull subtle surprises and a melancholy behind melodies is evident: overtly on the opener The Gown that takes a downward turn through guest Tex Houston's gloomy keyboard strings. And there's palpable fragility and vulnerability evident in Lucky Day, the tidal surge of the title track and the alluring Smallest Falls.