Ringlets – Ringlets (Mutual Skies/Leather Jacket Records)

Auckland’s Ringlets have just released their debut album and The 13th Floor’s Simon Coffey is all over it. Here are his thoughts…

This is Ringlets debut LP and vinyl release, a digital single, Sever was aired and celebrated earlier this year in April, the four-piece are Lazlo ‘aka The Lobster’ Reynolds (Guitar), Leith towers (Vocals), Arabella Poulen (Bass) and Arlo Grey (Drums), originally all Tamaki Makaurau, but now one of them lives in Ōtautahi. I’ve seen them live twice.

Ringlets starts brashly, I Used To Paint has the band living up to the post-punk branding that surrounds them, it’s a personal insight into artistic failure. Nightmares starts promisingly, but its clunkiness ultimately fails to deliver, whereas the single from the album Sever is just too fast-paced to maintain attention. (Why it was released as the lead single and not I Used To Paint flummoxes me? Maybe they thought Hauraki and or The Rock would play it?)

She’s an Ascetic is clever musically, almost Beatlesque, and vocally compliment the melodies, as a juxtaposition to I Used To Paint it sits well, then there’s the Flying Nunish Snitch Olympics (think Clean or Verlaines) with melodic harmonics, that set it up as the next radio single (hint hint) followed by, at last, another post-punk agit-pop song, Boundless Heart, worthy of XTC or Gang of Four referencing, great timing and guitar riff changes,

On the home straight, Made of Mist, featuring Arabella Poulen on vocals as well as Lazlo, is a highlight, but is sadly followed by I Am Pudding, which sounds unfinished and like Nightmares, clumsily put together. As Ringlets comes to an end with a pseudo-Cowboy Western-flavoured ballad, Born Angry, it’s not angry, no energy emanates from it, it’s an overblown song to end with.  

I know it’s exciting for musicians to release full-length albums, but Flying Nun and Creation had/have the right idea, 12” EP are a great introduction to a band. Ringlets has six really rather good songs, several of which are magnificent, but the others drag the album down ultimately. The album’s production is excellent, but it feels like many of the songs needed a little more (re)crafting before being put on tape. Too much U2/REM and not enough Echo and The Bunnymen/Jesus Lizard

3 out 5 Stars

Simon Coffey