Julian Temple Band: Tunnels (digital outlets)

This long-running Ōtepoti Dunedin six piece – almost two decades in the game, this their fifth album in 11 years – don't seem to have captured national attention in the way that their peers Six60 and Summer Thieves have managed.

Which is a shame because they are certainly energetic as they cross from solid rock to post-New Wave pop-rock and just enough musically embellishment to nudge them into psychedelic rock and chamber pop.

Maybe they make more demands on their audience than others by not offering simple pop tropes and summer festival vibes.

Temple is an intelligent and mature lyricist: No Evil opens with, “I had my portrait done by the surrealist paintress, she was famous. She left my eyes and my ears and my mouth off my head. I asked, ‘what does it mean?’ She said, ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’.

Now that's a step away from the more adolescent lost-love lyrics which abound these days, then it gets deeper: “Never ever enter the level with the devil in it, be the clever little monkey ride it up to number seven, line it up, find your place in heaven, never look back”.

The musically turbulent Tunnels title track starts almost like a sliver of balmy yacht-rock but soon enough Temple's croaking uncertainty leads to the explosive “I know exactly what we'll do, we'll dig a tunnel . . . there are no borders to cross, no checkpoints, state lines . . .”.

These are crafted, powerfully played songs – Don McGlashan guest horn player on the brooding, throaty, Waitsean and moving Guilt – which pack a lot of powerful imagery and musical punch into their economic running times.

Everywhere is a deep-seated sense of unease here enhanced by violin and orchestration in a cycle of songs which refer (obliquely) to Temple's relationship with his mother, a jazz pianist, now in dementia care.

There are pieces here which truly soar (Library) and others which ache with hard-edged desperation (Hide Away) and epic grandeur (Little Blood).

Elsewhere was rather ho-hum when this band was finding itself but this time out they have delivered a collection of committed songs which impress at every turn.

They will be something to see on their tour.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here where it is also available on vinyl

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