NZ Listener’s Songs of the Week: New tracks from Deva Mahal, The Saints, and Mumford and Son’s Hozier collab

Sometimes Good

by Deva Mahal

The Silver Scroll nominee, local soul singer and daughter of folk-blues legend Taj offers a sultry, steamy and wordy mood piece with just a tinge of regret about a relationship (“I never quit when I should”) and a bad man who is sometimes good. Or
at least good enough for enough of the time. Another post-midnight single in advance of an EP due next year.

Rubber Band Man

by Mumford and Sons with Hozier

The standard bearers for alt-folk combine for this lyrically convoluted pairing of banjo-coloured country from the Mumfords and Hozier’s dark brown folk to arrive at an upbeat chorus: Everybody sing “You’re a world away but you’re still the same . . .” An interesting blend of wistfulness, gravitas, lost love and celebration. Not to be confused with Bowie’s Rubber Band or the Spinners Rubberband Man or Ti’s Rubber Band Man.

Hellbent Heaven Sent

by Courtnay and the Unholy Reverie

Opening with a John Lee Hooker/George Thorogood riff, this tough-minded blues single from Taranaki’s Courtnay Low and fellow travellers does some impressive shapeshifting with a hint of gospel, some flame-throwing guitar and then a sudden stop (to fool radio DJs?) before a furious closing minute. A band whose singles we’ve covered and is one to watch, so let’s hope this all leads to an album.

I Might Go Swimming

by Jed Parsons

Domesticated acoustic indie-pop gently celebrating parenthood but also having the chance for personal downtime when the kids are elsewhere. Simple idea but it gets delightfully dreamy towards the end.

Cyclones

by Ziggy Alberts

Australian folk-pop, beach friendly, singer-songwriter and surfer Alberts often sounds like he’s tailoring his music to being played at a campfire on an acoustic guitar. It seems to have universal appeal because he’s played a sold-out show at the Royal Albert Hall and toured Europe and North America. Forthcoming shows in Auckland and Christchurch have sold out too so he’s doing something right. This typically breezy song addresses bad habits and living life as if in a cyclone of emotions, not taking the time to think more clearly. There’s a message in there.

Gasoline/Carnivore (Long March Through the Jazz Age)

by The Saints

Not to be confused with recent tourists The Saints 1973-78 — lead by founder-Saints guitarist Ed Kuepper and drummer Ivor Hay — this is The Saints as the long-running vehicle for co-founder singer-songwriter Chris Bailey who died in 2022. Bailey was one of the great Australian singers and writers – but don’t take our word for it, here’s Nick Cave: “The Saints were Australia’s greatest band and Chris Bailey was my favourite singer”. After Kuepper and Hay left the original Saints, Bailey carried the name on and then through solo albums created an impressive, if rather overlooked, body of work.

Here recorded in Sydney a few years before his death – with longtime latter day Saints drummer Pete Wilkinson – Bailey is in fine form for the blues-rock of Gasoline where he moves into the same vocal space as Jagger’s drawl, and on the simultaneously released Carnivore (Long March Through the Jazz Age) he’s with horns and strings which were a feature in mid-period Saints and his solo work. It’s a big dark ballad with a soaring vocal and Biblical references. The Long March Through The Jazz Age album is due November 28. These and the previous singles Judas, Empires (Sometimes We Fall) and Break Away are very convincing evidence that he hadn’t lost his touch.

Ella Joy

by Murphy Moore

The Southland-raised alt-country singer Moore singer celebrates her fun-loving sister who has “fire in her veins” in a wordy, energetic song which, oddly, doesn’t deliver the joyous mood you’d expect and sounds more serious than celebratory. Certainly one for country radio though.