Earlier this year I ventured out in the middle of a severe weather warning into the centre of Christchurch to see Mudbelly at their album launch gig. The band had waited a long time to put on the show, as although the album was recorded the previous year, there had...

For those outside Aotearoa, it is hard to describe just how important the name “Finn” is within our musical world. For us it means Tim, the visionary who brought us Split Enz, who then roped his younger brother into the band. When that group broke up Neil went on to...

There is no doubt whatsoever that Alien Weaponry have captured the imagination not only of the New Zealand public, but metalheads worldwide, with their combination of groove and thrash metal mixing with their Māori heritage to create something very special indeed....

Although there is always a very Cuban base to his music, Domingo has covered many different styles, as he transcends culture and language: music is about expressing emotions honestly and he tries to be as unique as he can. As a child, his parents listened to a lot of...

Here we have the debut solo album from Glenn Bodger, who provided most of the instrumentation himself, although he has also been assisted by former Braintree bandmate Darryn Harkness, who helped with additional guitar, bass and keyboards where required. From the...

This six-track EP is less than 13 minutes long, but in many ways that makes total sense, as there is a feeling within this that we are being allowed into a secret and very personal world and that it would be intrusive to stay for too long. One can imagine Samantha...

Obon is the debut album from alternative metal band {Secrets of the Sun}, a quartet based in Wellington. It has been a while in the making, in that the first single, Suffer With The Moon, was actually released a year ago while Wretched Tracks came out in February:...

The very first time I looked at the cover of this album I was reminded of Deep Purple’s In Rock, as even though that was a stylised version of Mount Rushmore, there we had dudes with long hair playing Seventies hard rock and that is the same here. I mean, we even have...