Gary SteelSearch For Yeti – Dark So Soon (independent)
They probably won’t be performing at Spark Arena anytime soon, but GARY STEEL reckons Wellington-based independent rockers Search For Yeti are well worth a listen.
Had Search For Yeti existed in the 1990s or early 2000s, their debut album, Dark So Soon, would probably have been signed to the local branch of a multinational record company, and NZ On Air would no doubt have been flogging several of its tracks to commercial rock radio. It may even have been a hit.
But times have changed. The go-to portal for music is Spotify, where New Zealand bands are routinely submerged (sabotaged?) under a slew of junk from America and other sovereign states with more musical-geopolitical muscle. It doesn’t help that there’s now so much new music coming out all the time that it’s become hard to get heard, or that traditional media – which once featured entertainment sections packed with album reviews – rarely covers contemporary music anymore.
It’s hard to understand why Search For Yeti even bother entering the firmament but clearly, they’re suckers for punishment. They’re also really good. Dark So Soon, which exists online but also in a beautiful fold-out package and multicoloured vinyl paid for by Pledge Me supporters, is a delightfully old-fashioned 10-track record of well-crafted rock.
With one foot in the kind of honest and emotive ‘80s rock of a band like U2 (minus Bono’s posturing), there’s no getting away from the fact that these three guys are working to a long-established template, but they do it so well that anyone with a hankering for well-crafted, hook-laden yet pleasingly layered, atmospheric rock music will get the right kind of pleasure hit from Dark So Soon.
Opening track ‘Alice’, for instance, is slightly reminiscent of moody Aussie band The Church with its chiming guitar figures and slightly mysterious air. In parts, it also resembles New Order, specifically in its deployment of melodic bass and vocals that are pleasingly spoken-sung and free of unnecessary ornamentation.
‘Out To Dry’, on the other hand, reminds this old fart (me) of Brisbane alt-folk-rock legends The Go-Betweens, but Search For Yeti are resolutely themselves despite some obvious influences, and their music refuses to conform to narrow aesthetic or genre conventions. While the trio have an expansive and near-cinematic sound at times, they have no problem adding a gnarly blues riff here or a country-rock sound there (specifically on ‘End Of Days’, a song that mixes deep love with an apocalyptic scenario).
They’re obviously gearheads and their gregarious use of different sounds reflects this, especially the Mellotron and organ-like textures that give an orchestral, almost prog feel to sections of some tracks. Despite this and the moodiness that pervades, most of the songs rock out to some extent, and all of them contain hooks that stick.
Lyrically, like so many rock groups before them, they’re obsessed with being obsessed with a woman who brings on all sorts of nature-based metaphors, most of them relating to the sea. More interesting to me is the way it holds together performatively and sonically. Recorded mostly at Tiny Triumph studios in Wellington, and mastered in Germany, Dark So Soon is an album that even audiophiles will be happy to rock out to.
Consisting of Vince Waide (bass guitar), Luke Marlow (lead vocals, guitar) and Sean Barker (drums), Search For Yeti came out of an earlier band called What Noisy Cats, and according to Vince, for want of a better line they describe their sound as “atmospheric indie rock… sometimes noisy, sometimes not”. Fair enough, I reckon. Catch them on their album launch tour, which starts tomorrow at Auckland’s Whammy Bar.
Tour Dates:
Whammy Bar, Auckland – Thursday March 27
Nivara Lounge, Hamilton – Friday March 28
The Jam Factory, Tauranga – Saturday March 29
Meow, Wellington – Thursday May 8
The Paisley Stage, Napier – Friday May 9
The Stomach, Palmerston North – Saturday May 10
The Boathouse, Nelson – Friday July 18
Space Academy, Christchurch – Saturday July 19
