What bands play upbeat songs that are touched by such sadness? What bands luxuriate in melancholy sweetness with such rich despondency? The Smiths and The Cure. Here's another: Trick Mammoth.
Trick Mammoth belong to a lineage that includes Hatful of Hollow and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. They create the sort of literate, romantic pop music that was indie's high-water mark before indie became a byword for sounding like U2 and before Britpop's 60s rock heist.
They remind me of another New Zealand band, The Verlaines, whose early records matched love's desperate urgency with a fierce poetic intensity. Floristry had me reaching for Hamlet - how many bands can you say that about? - and Ophelia's "fantastic garlands", and the death and the maiden motif.
I've no doubt that Trick Mammoth made Floristry sound as good as they possibly could. And it sounds fantastic. They're all about 19 years old. Everyone else will be playing catch-up if they get any better.
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