The Spatulas - A Blue Dot LP

The Spatulas ‘A Blue Dot’ is an album that’s taken me a while to formulate my feelings about. It’s been close to the turntable for months, sometimes asking for multiple plays a day, with me becoming more attuned to their sweet and unwieldy rock sound with each listen.

In comparison to their previous album ‘Beehive Mind’ Miranda & Co have developed their C86 / Flying Nun / post-VU style jangle to embrace a ragged rock ‘n’ roll dynamic. I’m imagining an audience that will not enjoy the idea of this direction and in this imagined audience’s neatly curated world ‘A Blue Dot’ would have moved in the sonic direction of Grouper or Hydroplane.

If you’re not a projection of my imagination and fall into that camp, I’m asking you to keep an open ear, as these songs possess an un-muted creativity and salt of the earth vulnerability expertly captured by Emily Robb.

Situate Spatulas circa 2026 next to Rosali, Mowed Sound and Crazy Horse along with Barbara Manning and The Garbage and The Flowers as mentioned in the official album blurb by Max Milgram. Pure guitar band magic with none of the D-I-Y charisma smoothed over.

P.S. Hello Elijah, great work on the bass! – Nic