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After a few very relaxing weeks off of school, traveling back to Ohio, visiting friends and family, and catching up on episodes of House and The Office (thank you, Meghan!), I’m finally ready to get back to work. I’ve been writing reviews for the upcoming monthly update for The Z Gun, so things over here have been on the backburner, but I figured that I should give you something to bite on for the next week. Think of this post as an addendum to the "Top 25."

On On (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2006)

Where did this come from?!!! I’m guessing that On is a new group from New Zealand, but to be honest, I don’t know much about them. Their self-titled CD was released last year on Campbell Kneale's (aka Birchville Cat Motel) impressive and uniformed CD/CDR label- thankfully distributed by both Midheaven, and Aquarius Records. If you think that this is akin to Birchville Cat Motel’s droning electric atmospheres, you couldn’t be more wrong. Blasted guitars, treble-kickin’, and a pair of screamers mired in overdrive, On is, at heart, a powerful punk band capable of moments which will humble even the most Flipper-crazed cheerleaders of them Pissed Jeans and Clockcleaner. However, the tapes are thick with submerged melodies (which were not immediately present to these ears), and a dialog between high-end amp noise and low-end drones that I can imagine that Boodle Boodle Boodle sounds like in a Morse code conversation in Okinawa. If I would’ve listened to this a few weeks earlier it would’ve easily landed a spot on the Top 25 list, but every winter you’ll get that. Tough shit.

The great thing about this is that you can totally hear 25+ years of kiwi rock in these lo-fi rumblings, but they’ve even moved beyond the left-field noise and experimentation which The Dead C, Pumice, Peter Jeffries, S.P.U.D., Birchville Cat Motel, and Gate into an exciting new terrain... and this is only their first album?! While underground American music (such as Scratch Acid, My Dad is Dead, Happy Flowers, Butthole Surfers, and Crystallized Movements) was, at the time, being overshadowed by the likes of The Chills, the Verlaines, and NME, it’s incredible to hear all of the aforementioned completely absorbed into a new breed of kiwi animal that's ready to destroy all that's left of the once-great Flying Nun. Highly recommended.