The Puddle – Playboys In The Bush – Fishrider – FISH005 - ***

The New Zealand lo-fi legends The Puddle's engagingly sloppy indie-pop was epically unadorned.
But what the band's own press release tellingly describes as 'florid saxophone embellishments' on some songs here, suggest that for a quarter century these apparently inspired folk-art amateurs might actually have been frustrated exponents of emotionally explicit mainstream rock.
There's a sub-Velvets classic lurking in In Dreams but someone's honked over it. Nonetheless, fans of Pavement and the nineties American slack school can squint and see the southern hemisphere source of those insouciant grooves, and the decision to retell Norse Mythology chug guitar style on the nine minute Valhalla is inspired.

(2/1/2011)