Bats - The Standard-Bearers of the Dunedin Sound

If we wanted to take a snapshot of the New Zealand scene during the 1980s and frame what is, by definition, called kiwi rock, dreaming of that utopian island at the far ends of the earth, we would inevitably end up talking, one way or another, about Flying Nun and the scene that grew up around that label. A label that, from the very start, managed to earn an international reputation through its unique and original approach. A place where you could find people driven by a visceral passion for music, who weren't really interested in chasing the commercial side of the job. It's about believing that what you do comes from the heart, with no strange schemes behind it. That the words and melodies tell of shattered ideals and recurring desires. This combination of overwhelming passion, joined with a strong dose of eclecticism, managed to create a label that was unique and remains seminal in its genre to this day, capable of giving voice to - and building - a damn fresh and innovative kind of music. But let's take things in order.

The Dunedin Sound

New Zealand music never really had much of a profile; Split Enz, in the 1970s, had a strong impact on the masses, sure, Th' Dudes and Hello Sailor had a decent following, no doubt, but there was no particular sign that a distinctive scene existed, or that anything special was happening in the country. Most people were busy looking abroad, and they had huge doubts and a total indifference towards anything happening at a local level, even though the international options available were actually rather limited compared to today's standards. The material released and produced on a global scale was in fact quite restricted, and only a small fraction of it was also published in New Zealand. Some of the most interesting artists, such as Can or the Velvet Underground, were only imported in a tiny number of copies, and licensing costs were simply too high to sustain; but music, as we know, followed its own course, and in '77 the echo of the Sex Pistols reached even this Pacific island, crashing into a world that would go on to absorb and expand upon its foundations.
Punk gave many people the drive to start their own band on DIY principles, managing to open the doors to new movements, new experiences, new sounds. Scepticism towards the local scene stopped being a problem, because the brakes had been well and truly released, the barriers shattered, and creativity was free to explode into something that would go down in history. Four of the island's biggest centres (Greymouth, Christchurch, Auckland, and Dunedin in particular) each ended up with their own scenes, all very different from one another yet all strikingly alike, and venues started opening up and feeding this momentum, while audiences grew in step with their trust in, and appreciation of, the artistic skill of these new acts. Several bands found success: among the biggest we can recall Suburban Reptiles, Proud Scum, Nocturnal Projections, and The Scavengers, clearly in the mould of the Ramones; all of them relied on a jagged, distorted rhythm section as well as a rough sound that was a hallmark of punk everywhere.

Just as every sound gets tied to a city (Seattle, Austin, Athens, Bristol…), Dunedin would go on to become the mouthpiece and absolute epicentre of the shockwave. In this southern town there was, in fact, a hard-to-explain charm that managed to embody a sound quite distinct from the rest of the island. Attention had shifted towards lo-fi aesthetics and minimalist Velvet Underground-style drones, combined with the jangly guitar work of Roger McGuinn and the Byrds. Melodies free from both LSD and heroin, which were all the rage elsewhere; the Dunedin Sound drew its strength from its sheer vitality. The resulting hybrid has proven remarkably resistant to the passage of time, partly because what emerged was a straightforward, rhythm-driven garage rock, and partly because the emphasis placed on those melodies has never gone out of fashion.
It was in this very town, amid the throng of bands crowding the venues, that a lineup of musicians began to take shape, led by brothers Robert and Andrew Scott, playing alongside a couple of lads picked up off the street - a kind of non-musicians mostly there to give voice to their own creativity. They called themselves Electric Blood, and on paper they had every feature needed to be remembered. A group that truly took shape and evolved around the figure of Robert, who would later prove capable, among his many projects, of writing and recounting a chapter not only of kiwi rock history in general, but of Flying Nun's as well.

Flying Nun

Mid-1970s. Roger Shepherd's earliest memories, a lad from Christchurch, are in black and white. Colour TV arrived in 1974, but for him the world stayed monochrome for another couple of years. In the summer of '76 he decided to get himself a summer job as a clerk in a record shop; at that age he couldn't yet have imagined that before long that job would give him the foundations to build something that would leave its mark - to him it was just a distinctly poorly paid distraction while waiting for school to start again. It was practically a family trade, you might say, since his father had worked in a record shop in the Fifties and his sister had been a clerk at the EMI shop in the Sixties. It was in his blood.
The job gave him the chance to discover things, and to discover himself: slowly the world began to take on colour, no longer just black and white but with shades of grey starting to come into view - no longer just the Beatles or Black Sabbath, now there was also Mothers of Invention, Genesis, Status Quo, Captain Beefheart, and plenty of others. Not long after came his first concerts, his first live experiences, his first trips. And it was one of those very trips that lit the fuse.
Towards the end of the 1970s our Roger headed south to catch what would probably now be called a buzz band, the Enemy: one of the most important New Zealand punk rock bands of the time, originally formed by Chris Knox, a lo-fi pioneer. At that show at Beneficiary Hall, the opening act was a local band as unconventional as it was chaotic, calling themselves The Clean. He was so struck by them that he thought all of this somehow had to be documented and spread, so it wouldn't go unnoticed. How did things unfold? It's simple. In 1981 Robert Shepherd, in Christchurch, launched his own independent label named Flying Nun, inspired by an American sitcom. Flying, along with Propeller and Ripper Records in Auckland, was one of the country's first independent labels, but it would end up being remembered for something altogether bigger.

Although the first single released on the label was "Ambivalence" by fellow countrymen The Pin Group, with its clear Joy Division influence, the real launch came with the majestic "Tally Ho" by The Clean. Everything started from there. A simply perfect, well-balanced track; not too garage, not too pop, the song everyone wished they'd written. The hit was produced on a budget of just fifty dollars with the help of Chris Knox, and quickly climbed to number nineteen on the New Zealand indie chart. The Dunedin band was made up of brothers Hamish and David Kilgour and Bats co-founder Robert Scott - yes, the former Electric Blood member.
They were quirky, eccentric and damn eclectic, authors of an angular punk that owed as much to Velvet Underground-style drones as to the Ramones' no-nonsense approach. The melodies were noisy and dissonant, but David Kilgour's guitar peals hit you again and again. Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Camper Van Beethoven have all cited the Clean as a primary influence, and indeed it's hard to imagine albums like "Slanted And Enchanted" or "New Wave Hot Dogs" without the beneficial precedent set by this kiwi band.

Their first EP, "Boodle Boodle Boodle", was one of the most important releases of the Dunedin Sound: also recorded on a shoestring budget, it climbed to number four on the New Zealand chart and stayed in the top 20 for the following six months. Just as immediate as that success was, the band's survival proved just as fleeting. The label's roster, however, still far from its glory days of renown, was small and incomplete; to expand it, Roger wanted to release records by four more bands on Flying Nun - all of them, as it happened, from Dunedin.
In 1982, then, came "Dunedin Double EP", a seminal record with an unusual format: it contained two 12" discs at 42rpm, running fifty minutes long, even longer than many albums of the period.
Each of the bands was represented by one side of the EP: The Chills with their effervescent chimes and early Barrett-esque psychedelia, Sneaky Feelings in a Paisley Underground vein, The Stones, and the indie-pop of the Verlaines, who walked hand in hand with Australia's Go-Betweens.
The release of this record provided a major boost both for Flying Nun and for the four bands involved, as well as fresh inspiration and momentum for the Dunedin music scene as a whole. Soon after, the label signed Tall Dwarfs, Chris Knox's new project, Straitjacket Fits, the ones most tied to classic garage rock, Garageland, New Zealand's answer to the Pixies, and finally the pop rock of The 3Ds, along with many others.

In this musical renaissance, though, it has to be said that many people made - and still make - the mistake of equating the name Dunedin Sound with Flying Nun, a claim that is as reckless as it is untrue; many bands originally from the southern city made jangly guitars their winning weapon, but not all of them were devoted to those chiming sounds. Bailter Space, for instance, originally from Christchurch, made the wall of sound their strong point, while Headless Chickens dressed up their songs with a heavy use of electronics.

Bats: the most flourishing offshoot of the Dunedin Sound

When the Clean decided to temporarily break up in '82, they all went their separate ways. The Kilgour brothers started working on an all-experimental project, while bassist Robert Scott moved to Christchurch to be with his friends Paul Kean and Kaye Woodward, with whom he began playing under the name The Bats. The lineup also included drummer Malcolm Grant, and the band came together in a completely natural way, through small recordings and public live shows: they played in every corner of the city, at every party, at every event, even on New Year's Eve. Robert, the true leader of the group, learned to write songs and moved from bass to guitar.

Their sparkling, infectious melodies and lively guitar chimes somehow recalled American college rock acts like Rem, 10,000 Maniacs and Miracle Legion, even though they never achieved the success and international cult status of their peers.
Working with makeshift means, they recorded their first EP, By Night, at Flying Nun's studio (a generous term for it) in '84. It was an auspicious start, since not one of the six songs on it took a wrong step. A masterful work in which Scott's simple songwriting, his rhythm guitar, Woodward's lead guitar, Grant's backbeat and Kean's melodic basslines all fused into a single harmonious triumph.
It's hard to pick out a single song that outshines the rest: Woodward's 12-string work on "Jewellers Heart" was distinctive and striking, the vocal restraint on "I Go Wild" was compelling, while the honky-tonk stomp of "United Airways" reaches dizzying heights. Perhaps, though, the one that stands out above all the rest is "Man In The Moon". Scott's best work, in fact, comes when he navigates mid-tempo songs, adopting the emotional register of an early-1970s singer-songwriter, heavily influenced by John Cale's solo work. "Man In The Moon" comes remarkably close to that trademark sound.

A short tour of Australia followed, and then a festival back on home soil, ahead of the release of the second EP the following year. And Here Is… Music For The Fireside included, alongside gems such as "Claudine" and "Blindfold", also "Earwig", originally released back in the day by Electric Blood and included here in a reworked form by Robert.

Local radio stations were by now playing Bats' songs on constant rotation, and the band, seizing the opportunity, travelled to England to join the Chills, who were recording their second album. Thanks to various connections, they arranged a couple of dates in London and another three in Europe, supporting Housemartins, Alex Chilton and Screaming Blue Messiahs, but had to abandon the rest of the planned European tour because of the Chernobyl disaster, shifting the dates to Cornwall and Wales instead. The radioactivity scare had the effect of putting a stop to tourism in the UK, which made travel and lodging easier for our lads, though it did nothing for their visibility.
In '86 they released their third EP, Made Up in Blue, whose tracklist is probably among their most fondly remembered, all thanks to Woodward's flair for scattering kaleidoscopic, intermittent guitar chimes throughout.
The lyrics paint a picture that's in clear contrast with the shimmer of the melodies. It's an anthem to indecision and worry, as the protagonist questions his social circle, and the direction and advice of others, complaining about the dead weight surrounding him. It sums up that moment when you doubt an important decision, weigh up the consequences and benefits, and take a leap into the unknown.

All these songs from the first three EPs were later collected in 1990 on a compilation called Compiletely Bats, which best represents this early body of material – still raw and biting, if you will, but nonetheless unmatched by many – from a time before the masterpiece that is Daddy's Highway had even been cooked up.

The band's first, surprising full-length from 1987, Daddy's Highway, is generally the most beloved and best-known album. Most Bats fans rank it as their favourite, and if someone owns just one of their records, it's usually this one. Recorded half in Christchurch and half in Glasgow – while on tour – thanks to Collum McLean, a music shop owner who lent them a Stereo8 recorder, it embodies a perfect synthesis of the band's bittersweet, jangling, alternative pop. Few other bands manage to convey comfort and familiarity while simultaneously dragging you into darkness, into deep uncharted territory, quite like the Bats do. 'Daddy's Highway' is an unsettling, stimulating reflection, conjuring a gothic imagery that nonetheless glistens with reflected light and carefree harmonies. It's the most obsessive and schizophrenic of their records, studded with absolute melodic gems dressed in Paul Kean's wobbling bass, laid over a soft cascading layer artfully built by the violin of Alastair Galbraith (one of the most eclectic songwriters New Zealand, and probably the world, has ever produced, recruited by Robert himself to join the band), which echoes the guitar section – now sharp, now muted – from which Scott and Woodward's harmonies emerge.
The sweet sense of despair running through the twelve songs kicks off with the dissonant, delightfully lively 'Treason', the perfect song to hook you within seconds, damn catchy, followed by the breezy drift of 'Round And Down', in which every instrument pulses and feels more alive than ever. It's love at first jangle: the Dunedin Sound on full display. Rumbling basslines and amphetamine-fuelled choruses alternate with cadences more typical of a laid-back, auteur-driven indie-pop. If only New Zealand weren't on the other side of the planet, you might think many of these tracks were echoing the Glasgow scene of the early '80s, and in a sense you could say the Bats reinterpreted the past through a languor that is entirely rooted in the dark, angry '80s, set against melodies from the opposite end of the spectrum. The folk of 'Take It' and the basslines of 'Mid City Team' are equally assertive, showing an innate talent for building pop songs that are watered-down and eccentric at once.

A carefree masterpiece in an ocean of intricate darkness, lurking somewhere beneath hazy, sophisticated arpeggios. The lyrics are contemplative and multifaceted, ranging from quirky dissertations on love to intricate historical and political dynamics, mostly smothered beneath a wall of jangle. One of the album's high points is surely 'North By North', featuring a masterful, dreamlike solo from Galbraith, an uncommon flair that scatters pure poetry and perfect timing. The track is a kaleidoscope of chants and choruses over an unbridled, repetitive arrangement, at times expanded by Scott's vocals.
'Block Of Wood', with its repetitive guitar chimes set against a whispered melody, hypnotises and jolts you awake in an instant. The basslines seem to compete with the song's drumming, so much so that Kean and Grant seem to belong to two different bands. 'Tragedy' stands out as a bittersweet tale of lost love, a dirge where “You should see the letter I got today/ It came out of the blue and gray/ Tragedy beings at home/ Or so I’m told” are whispered by Scott and Woodward in an atmosphere bordering on dream-pop.
In between are stories of faded glory, the search for solid ground, and tragic nostalgia, highlighting their focus on the black and white of our lives. A multifaceted analysis that travels, step by step, down a highway that everyone, inevitably, must travel. Robert zeroes in on a fight against depression when your friends are hibernating, the trees are bare and optimism is a rare commodity, his voice scraping the bottom of the barrel only to discover there's nothing there but darkness.
Rather than wallow in pain, though, Scott decides the better path is introspection and meditation, concluding that the highway ahead is a long walk that embraces one's circumstances, and deciding, too, that innocence and new beginnings are right around the corner, exactly where they should be. Most of the Bats' songs capture that moment just before hitting rock bottom, when you realise things aren't as bad as your neurotic mind makes them seem. The title track closes out the record, which would later be expanded with a reissue adding five more tracks taken from the first three EPs. Nostalgic, desperate sentimentality, the kind only great pop artists can shape.
A classic, sadly unrecognised and still too stuck in this darkness, yet one that influenced a number of American artists who caught on to and appreciated its peculiarities. It remains the Bats' masterpiece, after which the band would take a break, partly due to Woodward's impending fatherhood, partly due to the Clean reunion, in which Robert would take part.

After Daddy's Highway, the Bats' triumphant ride continues with The Law Of Things (1988), through ecstatic chants and prairies of jangle-pop guitars.
The record, recorded between September and October 1988, boasts superb songwriting and delivers a breathtaking tracklist. Throughout, the alchemical hybrids between Robert Scott and Kaye Woodward's guitars, in cahoots with Paul Kean's bass, stage a luminous, metaphysical pop Eldorado on The Law Of Things, turning it into a waking dream.
The radiant vibrations of Alastair Galbraith's violin then forge the most lush, atmospheric folk spirit of this music, whose traditional structure remains unshakeable; a fairy-tale narrative sense and a nostalgia-steeped sentimentality stir to life. From 'Other Side Of You' to 'Mastery', from 'Nine Days' to 'Time To Get Ready', passing through genuine anthems like 'Never Said Goodbye' and 'Smoking Her Wings': in vivid succession, memories of the Velvet Underground and early Rem surface, arm in arm with hallmarks of British new wave.
From vocal flights of fancy to instrumental counterpoints, everything here is in a state of grace, worthy of the most sophisticated pop-psychedelic creations of the late '60s, to which the Bats pay an ideal tribute, proving themselves worthy successors.

At the dawn of the '90s the New Zealand band is in fine form, their musical formula vibrant and road-tested, proof against both audience and critics. The following studio album, Fear Of God, was recorded in the winter of 1991, again for Flying Nun, and marks the arrival of Alan Starret – who replaces Galbraith on violin – but above all draws the interest of the American label Mammoth.
The new, attentive production work hones and highlights, without simplifying, the most appealing elements of the Bats' previous work.
Musically, they don't stray from the coordinates laid out so far, and the closeness to their past is more than evident. Beyond the sharp guitar riffs and increasingly savvy vocal harmonic interplay, the new element here lies in lyrics that are more markedly romantic and melancholic. Bitterness and existential reflections surface: it is, then, a greater introspective care that updates the project. On Fear Of God the band's melodic miniatures, their sunny jangle-pop chants, amid accordions and choruses, acoustic guitars and viola, are dressed in existential and philosophical reflection. But the disappointment is considerably softened by irony and a faith in better times ahead.

The search for Eden begun on The Law Of Things matures into a different kind of awareness, but catchiness is anything but sacrificed, as shown by the sharp harmonic dressing of intense, vivid tracks such as 'The Black And The Blue', 'The Old Ones', 'Wath The Walls', 'Boogey Man'. In these years the Bats perform live frequently, alongside bands like The Wedding Present and Television, whose intercontinental tours cross North America, Europe and Australia. Audiences around the world thus get the chance to discover this musical formula, built on charged, neurotic jangly folk-pop, of which the New Zealanders are by now undisputed specialists.

Silverbeet, recorded in autumn '92, was released in '93. It reaffirms the band's verve, their singular gift for melodic filigree remaining as lively and restless as a fever. It matters little, then, to fans and newcomers alike, that this fourth album offers nothing particularly new or urgent, its variations proving, as ever, convincing and exemplary. The Bats' discography is like a film told in episodes, its echoes and correspondences unfolding without a break.

Silverbeet doesn't reach the heights of The Law Of Things, but it likewise bolsters the band's reputation. If the folk drive fades somewhat, a bolder indie-pop attitude comes to the fore, well displayed on 'Green' (an admirable protest song in support of Greenpeace, victim of a cowardly, unlawful attack never prosecuted by the authorities), as well as on the clattering 'Slow Alight', 'Straight On Home', 'Half Way To Nowhere'.
Tracks like 'Sighting The Sound' and 'Love Floats Two' then deliver appeal through the sublime lightness of circular guitar melodies, with those instant chord changes and acoustic inventions, not at all far removed from early Rem or Vulgar Boatmen.

Return to Dunedin

Few bands can make time vanish with a snap of the fingers: ten years pass between Couchmaster and At The National Grid, yet it's as if that time had been compressed into some crevice of space-time. The disintegrated world of the 2000s, the scant resources available to musicians while the majors crumble and no one has the nerve to invest in either young bands or the Bats' "safe bet" reputation, is a world that, paradoxically, brings them closer to their beginnings, to that still-virgin Dunedin in which Flying Nun was taking its first steps.
The National Grid is a small venue in the town, cheap to rent. A friendly place where time has stood still. From here comes the loving familiarity of Galaxie 500 found in the instrumental 'We Do Not Kick'; half "séance", half extraordinary rejuvenation, At The National Grid brings back jangling edges ('Horizon'), carefully tempered by the band's own mild psychedelia and that of the genre as a whole (the lovely 'Prewar Blues' being a fine example).
What's surprising, in fact, isn't so much the band's faithfulness to its own sound, but how little sense of "pure nostalgia" comes through on At The National Grid. If anything, the record feels perfectly in step with the dreamy spirit, the "gentle melancholy", of 2000s indie pop: it's no coincidence that it opens with 'Western Isles', almost like a demo that could belong to a self-released collection by early Shins or Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin, written with the class (and chordal fluency) of someone who lived through the era of 'The Good Earth' ('Bells') firsthand – in fact, who helped shape it.
More unexpected is the full-bodied power-pop, almost Wilco-like in its main theme and guitars, of 'Things'.
Indie audiences, more sensitive than ever to these "flashes of old flame", which in the case of At The National Grid take the shape of a piece of history coming back to life, greet the Bats' return as a revelation for younger listeners, far more than simply a welcome comeback for longtime fans.

The follow-up to At The National Grid entirely loses that lingering sense of a "reunion among friends" that characterised the previous record. Every track is polished to a shine, both in terms of songwriting and production, which here becomes far more tangible. For this reason, while At The National Grid evoked the band's early days, The Guilty Office undoubtedly winks more towards the Fear Of God era.
It seems, in short, that the Bats have returned determined to assert themselves on the scene again, almost as if starting their career over from scratch. The opening 'Countersign' already carries a melodic drive unheard of on At The National Grid, one more reminiscent of Daddy's Highway. Every chord on The Guilty Office has something assertive about it, whatever style is chosen; even in the orchestral touches reminiscent of Belle And Sebastian on 'The Orchard' and 'Castle Lights', and in more measured tunes like 'Like Water In Your Hands'.

Robert Scott's talent as a melody-writer once again shines through in all its value: his class allows him to fuse the Bats' signature style with more modern urban sentimental textures on the gorgeous title track, complete with a barely perceptible closing instrumental build-up.
The Guilty Office nonetheless remains a Bats record through and through: in every song the chords follow one another, linked with geometric precision, each explicitly expressing a feeling, like an eloquent chromatic sequence.
The more overtly pop, carefree character of some tracks (the Hawaiian touch of 'Two Lines', the duet 'Satellites') is perhaps also due to the side project undertaken by the other members of the band. Minisnap, a sped-up, danceable take on the Bats' sound, released the fine 'Bounce Around' in 2008, on which the songwriter's role is taken on, with some success, by guitarist Kaye Woodward.
And yet there's a real sense of schematism here that goes beyond the band's sonic and compositional consistency (as if the chromatic chord sequences eventually become as rote as a sofa-fabric catalogue), a reliance on their own fixed points that is almost too frequent, making The Guilty Office one of the band's least fresh and incisive albums.

Freedom from inner monsters

Free all the monsters now
Let them fly up and away
da “Free All The Monsters”

There is, perhaps, more kinship between Robert Scott and Dunedin's old mental asylum than with any other building in the area. A place of marginalisation but, at the same time, an Edenic enclosure immersed in nature (just listen to the chorus of birdsong at the end of 'In The Subway') and inhabited by souls both more sensitive and stronger. The week of isolated recording sessions at Seacliff leads to the release of Free All The Monsters, the band's eighth album, produced by Dale Cotton, already a collaborator of their cousins The Clean.
A vivid yet never predictable optimism pervades the gentle lull of 'Getting Over You', the soft wisdom of 'See Right Through Me'. A renewed innocence becomes a filter for reality, an acceptance of defeats and misfortunes illuminating the songs' every step.
Renewed and sharpened, too, is the chemistry between Woodward and Scott, with the lead guitar becoming a more prominent presence and the two voices complementing each other beautifully (for example, on the lovely 'Fingers Of Dawn'). But it's above all in the ramshackle anthem, in the gentle triumph of the title track, that the band seems to spark back to life, growing aware of itself and its own history. Three simple chords, a progression that only bands like Teenage Fanclub have the class to dust off, Woodward's post-punk-inflected riff and Scott's urgent vocal delivery: these are the ingredients of a rebirth.
The magic of Seacliff inspires the instrumental 'Canopy', a walk full of wonder and reverence through the depths of the forest, while the band's imperfect charm resurfaces in the sweetness of the opening 'Long Halls'.
On 'On The Bank' it feels as if you're right there with them, on the Dunedin wharf, swaying imperceptibly to the rhythm of their psychedelic languor, watching the sea rise and fall.
That, in the end, is the whole secret of the Bats: they will never move away from that wharf, from Seacliff, but will keep gazing out at the ocean, with a mix of attraction and repulsion, seeking an Elsewhere through the simplest of things.

Apples and orange juice
I can’t taste them like before
Simple things again
I don’t feel them anymore
I will wait for you
Until the day
Yes I will wait for you
If I may
da “Simpletons”

A near-"sunshine pop" attitude instead animates The Deep Set, the band's ninth album. Despite this, their ninth record is perhaps their most mature, the one in which they feel most in command of themselves and their own mood. In a sense, it makes the preceding Free All The Monsters look more like a midlife-crisis record, more erratic but also, in a way, more "ageing".

The Deep Set is a comfortable guitar idyll ("Rock And Pillars"), made by a band in full control of its craft and, ultimately, of the world. But that doesn't mean it's merely competent work, as shown by the crystalline melodies of "Busy" and "Looking For Sunshine", or the cello arrangements that shake off the apathy of "Steeleye Gaze", mirrored in the twee of "No Trace".
As the lovely, vaguely (Middle) Eastern-tinged tale "Durkestan" suggests, the Bats have reached that artistic state shared also by Dean Wareham: that of someone who has found in art their home, their most familiar place.

It may take a while to disentangle The Deep Set from the background noise of "new," and no one should be fooled into thinking this record contains some of the most memorable songs of The Bats' career. Still, it might be considered their most consistent and accomplished album, rich in atmosphere and narrative skill, even with a few understandably more conventional, or at least predictable, moments (the opener "Rooftops").

Luca Pasi: Introduzione, Dunedin Sound, Flying Nun, primi tre Ep, Daddy’s Highway
Lorenzo Righetto: At The National Grid, The Guilty Office, Free All The Monsters, The Deep Set
Fabio Russo: The Law Of Things, Fear Of God, Silverbeet

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