Terror Of The Deep
I’ve long had a soft spot for Wellington, NZ’s Terror of the Deep and the news of a new release is met with pretty high expectations over here. Night People Tapes issued US versions of their first two albums, both prime distillations of jangle-pop joy, but each of those fell on far too many deaf ears. They’ve squeezed in an EP between those and their latest, Space Epic, but that’s not to say its been a crowded release schedule, this one’s been in the works since 2013. The album is a bit of a departure from the breezy Flying Nun indebted pop that the band has often traded in. They set out to make a 70’s style concept record, the subject matter here being, well, space, as the title might infer, but also humanity in relationship to our place in the scheme. The album still has a looseness to it, slight jangles bumping against a rolling rhythm section that churns like the cosmos they’re soundtracking. They stretch out, tacking and weaving through the album, feeling like one big piece of pastoral psych that reaches as epic as they’ve intended with horns, strings and I’m pretty sure I heard a gong in “Asteroid Belt”. It’s another great step forward for Terror of the Deep, and frankly, I hope a few people get tuned in to realize what they’re missing.
Support the artist. Buy it: HERE