Dead Famous People – Wild Young Ways (Tiny Global) (13th Floor Album Review)
Dead Famous People… their story is a pop parable. Formed in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in the mid-1980s by the singularly gifted Dons Savage, they quickly shone with two Flying Nun EPs and Savage’s backing vocals graced The Chills’ Heavenly Pop Hit.
By the late-80s they were in London, where a John Peel session brought them cult attention but then came fracture and silence. The band broke up, Savage returned home, and nearly three decades passed without a note.
In 2020 Savage revived the name with a cast of friends, signed to Fire Records, who are also now home to The Chills. The label released the new albums Harry and Ballet Boy, which were warmly received. They are rich with age-appropriate introspection, but still brim with melody and hint at darkness in common with earlier work.
Now Wild Young Ways arrives to fill the “missing middle chapter,” gathering long-lost London era recordings into the album that could have been. The sound is kin to the late-80s Dunedin guitar pop: chiming, propulsive, and melodic. It’s the same voice that powers the newer albums, but younger, brasher, and already sure of its musical gifts.
Wild Young Ways opener Vampirella sets the pace with dynamic guitars and drums that shift gears as the energy builds, Savage’s vocal riding the surge. Ghost Girl follows with winding guitars and skittering drums, a dark-toned miniature where her voice cries out against a circling, droning backdrop.
The title track, Wild Young Ways, enters with skipping acoustic guitars and almost spoken vocals before the full band bursts in, notes chiming like an anthem from the NME’s era-defining C86 cassette compilation. Little Flashes of Yesterday lasts barely two minutes but dances with momentum, while How to Be Kind slows to a hypnotic swirl of droning guitars and fairground like rhythms.
The tension between the sound’s brightness and the lyrics’ shadow runs throughout. Go Home Stay Home scratches and surges, its guitars submerged and re-emerging under insistent drums. All Hail the Daffodil charges ahead with assertive strums and high, urgent vocals. In Praise of Right Now settles into a slow groove, its title mantra anchoring the song. By contrast, Gladwrap motors along on sheer energy, guitars and drums driving with exhilarating speed.
Later tracks reveal a more reflective side. Life Said to the Boy pairs gentle guitar with deliberate pauses, a quiet conversation marked by time-keeping drums. Clean Hanky has a ringing bass riff and dreamy vocals before building into a rushing, echo-laden climax, while closer Left layers a descending riff and steady beat that builds in intensity before fading into silence.
Savage’s lyrics are vivid and direct, balancing humour and melancholy: outsiders and night creatures mingle with small, telling details of everyday life. Wild Young Ways is a reminder for long-time fans why they loved Dead Famous People in the first place and offers newcomers a perfect gateway. Bright, hook-laden and slightly haunted, this is the sparkling album that should have followed their first EPs, and, decades later, it finally has.
John Bradbury
Wild Young Ways is out now. Find it here.
