Having been picked up by the hip Australian label Karmic Hit, followed by a rave review in the Sydney Morning Herald and a top five playlisting on Triple J (Aussie Today FM) Pugwash look poised to finally reap some well-deserved rewards. This Australia-only release from the criminally ignored Dublin power-poppers combines the cream of their two albums to date –1999’s Almond Tea and last year’s Almanac – in a nifty digi-pak complete with enhanced video.
Chief Pugwasher Thomas Walsh constructs deceptively simple, gloriously melodic and harmony-laden songs, inspired by the classic pop of The Beatles, The Kinks and XTC with occasional nods to the psychedelic era. But despite the preponderance of Rickenbackers, Meletrons and strings, this is no retro indulgence fest, as evidenced by the bang-up-to-date textures of last year’s ‘Apples’ – surely one of the finest ever Irish singles and the equally sublime ‘Monorail’, a song the Eels would kill for.
Other gems well worth hearing again and again include the jangly ‘Keep Moving On’, ‘The Finer Things In Life’ and the Ray Davies -like ‘Emily Regardless’. The well-connected Jason Falkner (Beck, Air and Aimee Mann ally) lends a hand on several tracks on this ingeniously titled album, a record which demonstrates pretty conclusively why this outfit should (and no doubt will) be heard more widely in the future.
Available directly from www.KarmicHit.com or HMV Australia (www.hmv.com.au) at a surprisingly reasonable price.