Energy to burn

New albums from MEDaL and Adam Hattaway the Haunters feel fresh and danceable.

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SEQUELA, by MEDaL

The 2020 debut album Replica by MEDaL – a trio out of that nexus of creativity, Lyttelton – announced something of a South Island supergroup: Dave Mulcahy of Superette and JPSE (vocals, guitar, synths), drummer Mark Whyte (Into the Void) and John Billows (Renderers, Dark Matter) on bass, vocals and synths.

The album was a forceful implosion of power pop, brittle rock, motorik rhythms, widescreen synths and brooding boogie across nine songs that bottled up menace but did so in memorably melodic songs. MEDaL came off like JPSE’s heavier older brother.

With their sophomore album Sequela, they again deliver an emotional and sonically dense intensity that throbs threateningly with a big chorus on Divide (about the post-Trump world), headdown hard-pop (UFO Radio) and driving rhythms coming on like relentless half-track tanks on a blighted landscape (the terrifi c Head Pig).