Vinyl Speaks

Find it. Spotify | Amazon Auckland’s Villainy have been one of New Zealand’s most consistent heavy acts for years, and Raised In The Dark was the record that showed exactly why. Big riffs, anthemic structures, hooks that justify the ambition — all delivered with conviction.Arena rock without the cringe, a harder trick to pull off than it sounds. Villainy write songs designed to fill large rooms,…

The watch stopped. Not dramatically, not with any ceremony or warning. I woke up in a hotel room in Istanbul after the Izmir International Fair — the kind of dead-solid-asleep that follows three days of outdoor performances in thirty-five degree heat — looked at my wrist, and the second hand was doing nothing. The time displayed was 11:47. It was 7:19am. The watch had been sitting on the…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon The Wellington producer making futurist electronic music that sounds like it was beamed in from somewhere better than here. DUALITY established Montell2099 as one of New Zealand’s most interesting young artists — bass-heavy, technically astonishing, emotionally present in ways producer-focused electronic music often isn’t.The influence of UK bass and American trap is…

The word “claustrophobia” contains the word “claus.” Which is almost “clause.” A clause is a part of a contract. Fear, therefore, is a contract. “Claustrophobia contains the word ‘claus’ — almost ‘clause’ — a part of a contract. Fear is a contract you’ve signed with something that isn’t real. The termination clause is in there somewhere. I just haven’t found it yet.” It’s a contract you signed…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon Christchurch-born and steeped in American gothic tradition, Delaney Davidson makes records that sound like they were recorded in a barn at 2am during a debt dispute. Bad Luck Man is Davidson at his most essential — dark, funny, formally rigorous in the way great blues records are rigorous.Comparisons to Tom Waits get thrown around and aren’t wrong, but Davidson is doing…

Every program has a final word. I want to be honest with you: I don’t have one. What I have is a collection of things that are each, individually, somewhere in the vicinity of a final word. But none of them are quite it. “I don’t have a final word. But I do have a second-to-last word, and a strong sense that the final word will make more sense if you’ve read everything else. That’s called a…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon Wellington’s finest heavy act in their prime. Killjoy is Shihad at maximum intensity — the record where they found the balance between hook and hammer and refused to let go. “My Mind’s Sedate” opens the album and the pace only drops when they’re about to hit harder.New Zealand heavy music rarely sounds this confident or this well-crafted. Remastered but fundamentally…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon A dance record that dares to be purely joyful — which turns out to be its own kind of radical act. Beyoncé disappears into club culture and comes out the other side having made something timeless.Every track is engineered to hit harder than the last. Sixty-two minutes of relentless, meticulous fun from someone operating at a level most artists only theorise about.This is…

The ship is enormous. You know this intellectually before you board — you’ve seen the numbers, you’ve looked at the diagrams online, you understand that fifteen decks is a large number of decks. And then you turn a corner below the waterline and find a full-scale bowling alley, three separate dining concepts operating simultaneously, and a bar that is doing more business at 11am than most…

People say: burn the candle at both ends. If you burn a candle at one end, you get light and a reasonably predictable decline. The candle has a plan. If you burn it at both ends, you get twice the light and half the lifespan, and a small fire hazard when the two burning ends meet in the middle — which will happen faster than you expect. “Burn the candle at both ends and you get twice the light…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon Auckland’s Wax Chattels make aggressive, minimal post-punk that sounds like three people trying to outrun a panic attack. Clot is their debut and it’s a controlled demolition — 25 minutes, no fat, absolute commitment from start to finish.Not comfortable listening, and that is entirely the point. The rhythm section is relentless, the guitar is treated like a blunt…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon Dunedin’s Anthonie Tonnon makes the kind of records that arrive quietly and rearrange your listening. Leave Love Out of This is warm, intelligent synth-pop with lyrics that actually say something — “Rehua” was one of the year’s best New Zealand songs and not enough people know it.The rest of the record keeps pace. Tonnon doesn’t rush, doesn’t overplay, just builds these…

Find it. Buy the vinyl on Amazon · Buy on Bandcamp Vinyl On Vinyl may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. It costs you nothing extra and keeps Vinyl Burns in bourbon. Support the blog. Buy Vinyl Burns a bourbon → · Monthly subscription Troublemakers. I discovered WHO SHOT SCOTT before Zaidoon Nasir discovered himself. That is simply a fact. I was operating out of my bunker in Otaki…

Find it. Spotify | Amazon Three teenagers from Waipu making thrash metal with te reo Māori lyrics. Tū was one of New Zealand’s most unexpected and satisfying records of the decade — legitimately crushing riffs wrapped around genuine cultural depth. The songs about Māori history hit harder because of the genre, not despite it.The idea shouldn’t work this well. It works extremely well. Alien…

Spoiler. You had a five-year plan. We all have a five-year plan. The plan involved some combination of: a career pivot, learning Portuguese, owning a plant that was still alive, and generally being more of a person than you currently are. The plan was detailed. The plan was inspiring. You wrote it on a napkin and took a photo of the napkin and the photo is now buried somewhere between 2019 and a…

Find it. Buy the vinyl on Amazon · Buy on Bandcamp Vinyl On Vinyl may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. It costs you nothing extra and keeps Vinyl Burns in bourbon. Support the blog. Buy Vinyl Burns a bourbon → · Monthly subscription Collectors! Ten years. Ten bloody years since Prince Rogers Nelson — arguably the greatest one-man band in recorded history, and I say this as…

When you’re looking for something, you always find it in the last place you look. That’s why, when I find something, I keep looking a while longer — that way, when I stop, I found it sooner. “Success is elusive. You always find it in the last place you look. So when I find something, I keep looking for a while. That way, when I stop, it feels like I found it sooner.” Here is the paradox. If…