New Zealand's The Chills have one of the most distinctive sounds of any band. Within ten seconds of the start of Bad Sugar the opening track on their new record Snow Bound, it's perfectly clear it can only be them. Rolling, swirling melodicists with songs that sound like nursery rhymes recast as Pop songs and all the while leader Martin Phillips' comforting voice navigating the crossing.
For a band that have had such a scarred personal journey, Chills songs are consistently warm with consolation. Snow Bound seems to tell the story of hard won survival. As I say it will all be immediately familiar to anyone who knows the band's work, and while there's nothing here quite the equal of the band's Eighties classics, Pink Frost, Rolling Moon, Doledrums or This is the Way, (that would be too much to ask perhaps), this is solid stuff. It's a record that only adds to their considerable legacy and frankly it's good just to still have them here.
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