Cuticles - Pavlova EP 7"

 I am delighted to see the return of Wormwood Grasshopper, a Tasmanian label responsible for some of the greatest and most understated Australian discs of the previous decade! (More on some of those later...)

And what a return! A ripper 4 track 7" from Oamaru's Cuticles. Oamaru is about a 90min drive from Dunedin, and I guess that's a pretty good way to try and frame this record: The fringe of jingle-jangle pop but also bordering on some more slippery, less compartmentalisable NZ territory... i.e. The Spies, Shoes This High.

If anything their skepticism, slight destructiveness and closed-circle absurd humour hidden within these legitimate pop songs actually feels like the missing component to bands sold via "For fans of a certain Southern Island Sound" descriptive stickers. There's something beyond pre-Voluntary Student Unionism University Band Contest indie rock here. I love it! - Nic