Trip Thru Monsterland [Import]

Mad Scene (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 19, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• ASIN: B000027A6D
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #783,525 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Cheery, unadorned pop-rock from NZ, October 4, 2005

By 

John L Murphy "Fionnchú" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trip Thru Monsterland (Audio CD)

This album, according to the All-Music Guide, gets a lower rating than the band's later "Sealight," yet I don't hear a lot of difference in quality. About half of the 14 songs work well to convey a propulsive, Velvet-ish, drony pop that Flying Nun New Zealand groups from the 90s grew to polish. Mad Scene lacks the experimentation of other Kiwi bands, but Hamish Kilgour (The Clean) and Lisa Siegel and Robert Marrota helm a respectable craft that sails into typically roiling musical waters.

One drawback is Siegel's very plain voice and her delivery lacks much texture or nuance; hampered by her limited vocals, her songs tend not to wear as well. Kilgour and Marrota each give about a third of the songs, and they tend to follow more the predictable, but happy, template of many NZ bands. The hints of sitar on one track, surf guitar on another, show the kind of adventurous arrangements that I wish the trio had sought out more. Few spooks or monsters rear in this placid terrain.

Without such efforts, these tunes tend to probably serve more as an introduction for this NZ sound to listeners, and the notably chipper timbre of this disc, more so than most NZ music, makes for an acceptable face of NZ pop-rock. While it lacks the edginess of, say Straitjacket Fits, the restlessness of The Clean, the baroque gloom of The Verlaines, or the gloss of The Chills, Mad Scene should be of interest to fans of the later stages of the NZ alt-rock movement.