Dead Famous People: Wild Young Ways (digital outlets)

One of the more surprising releases of recent years was Dead Famous People's “Harry” in 2020.

As far as we had been aware the band enjoyed a short-lived moment on Flying Nun in the early-mid Eighties, went off to the UK and so on, the disappeared.

But now there was an album where Dons Savage showed an assured touch in power-pop and knew the value of a collar-grabbing chorus?

Then three years later came Ballet Boy which we again hailed and concluded “another classy album of new material, and one the great comebacks in New Zealand music.”.

And now this 13-song outing which Savage says “was all done when we were youngsters in our 20s”.

If that's true, it sounds as fresh as today.

So here are surging pop – and a terrific Sixties ballad How To Be Kind which gets bigger as it goes – which come from that drawer marked “long lost tracks” which appeared fleetingly on obscure vinyl.

There's a bit of the Nun-influenced Eighties jangle-pop (Go Home Stay Home) and I keep hearing the Sundays everywhere these days (my problem, I'm trying to be cured) although DFP turn up the volume and energy in the jangle-pop style.

And it's hard to resist a song like Life Said to the Boy.

Or Clean Hanky.

What DFP do is foreground melody and on the surging folk-framed pop of In Praise of Right Now (these days a rare and welcome message of optimism) let the vocal harmonies interweave to powerful effect.

There's also wit and astuteness in these songs, I look forward to a physical copy with a lyric sheet. 

You can hear why Billy Bragg was so taken with them he signed them to his label in the late Nineties and John Peel gave them airplay.

Dons Savage – who sang on the Chills' Heavenly Pop Hit and is in control of DFP's catalogue – has a powerful and melodic voice, and these songs all sound like familiar old friends.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here