Lonely Playgrounds. Shooless

Once again a new band from New Zealand, Shooless. It's album Lonely Playgrounds is one that musically is all over the place. Start listening and you will fall from one surprise into the other.

I know near to nothing about the band and that makes it as easy as it is interesting, as I only have to listen to the music. Here's what I know. These are the band members: Guy Yarrall, Freya Pinkerton, Will Abraham, Locky Buchanan, Jordan Neal and Emily Wheatcroft - Snape, but who does what? There's a male and female singer. The band is from Tāmaki Makaurau or Auckland for us non-New Zealanders. And, I almost forgot, this is Shooless' debut album.

The album opens with 'Wastelands'. A song so quiet and acoustic it could be the acoustic start to a Barbra Streisand or Celine Dion track. However, before it goes off into theatrics and orchestration, the singer's voice ends in an artificial echo to be replaced by an almost ugly postpunk chord progression, with an equally ugly recorded voice. The band kicks in and lays down an irresistible groove, that gives away to a psychedelic passage. It totally puts the song upside down, only to return to the groove and ugly singing and playing. This example of beauty and the beast music is called 'King Midas'. It's not the end of the story though, as Shooless decides to start mixing the two, before it finally goes for the big rock finale, including a spacey guitar solo. And this is only the start of the album!

'Debt' brings the mood back down and can be called a 70s influenced alternative ballad. There's a wobbly effect on the lead guitar, providing the song with an attractive depth. A bass solo? Check, it's there. With 'Debt' Shooless goes for a next level. It is not a complex song but made in very good taste. If anything, it shows the musicianship of the band's members. Just listen to the drum fills, but also in the silences. This band is not afraid to create them in the mix. Whoever, sings the lead here, this is well done. It is the first time I'm thinking about singer Anneke van Giersbergen of 90 and 00 band The Gathering. Shooless creates the same mood in this spacey rock track with very dreamy overtones.

That dreaminess is what the band takes along into song four of Lonely Playgrounds, 'Ignorant Bliss'. It is a very easy going mood where the atmosphere and the music is concerned. Again, Shooless takes the song to another dimension, when the band kicks in and the song totally changes. 'Ignorant Bliss' is two songs for the price of one, in just over four minutes. Yet ends rather abruptly. As if the tape ran out at a fatale moment. There could have been so much more is the suggestion it leaves me with.

The longest song on Lonely Playgrounds is 'Dead Spit' (6.05). The band again lays down a spacey groove based on a riff that is repeated, somewhat jazzy even, before the guitars kick in with a distortion kind of pedal to rock out in the chorus. The Gathering returns in my mind, but with the awareness that Shooless is far more inventive and adventurous. The female singer dares, is full of confidence: "I am a rock star", she sings and that with the album out for about a week. For all I know, the band already is around Tāmaki Makaurau. Based on what I'm hearing here, I would not be surprised.

If anything, the music on Lonely Playground has very little to do with the alternative and indie rockers I have come to like so much from the New Zealand scene. Shooless is a different beast. This band rocks in a totally different way by creating a lot of atmosphere first and allow itself to be taken from there. I would repeat myself if I would describe 'Flinch', were it not that it is so superbly done. I feel like I'm in an underwater world, mesmerised, wondering why I'm here and how it's possible that I survive without breathing in fresh air. Something like Ringo's 'Octopus' Garden' but then including slowly but surely rocking out. Rap?, yes, why not.

My guess is you will have gotten the drift by now. Let me leave you alone with the album that you undoubtedly will be playing already. The quality does not stop after 'Flinch'. The only thing I need to find out is, how will the album settle with me? The start is extremely promising though.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

You can listen to and order Lonely Playground here:

https://shooless.bandcamp.com/album/lonely-playground