‘Play it with some energy, This can be daunting, The only anchor that I need, Is made of ice cream’ (Emperor)

Cuticles hail from Oamaru, which nestles down on the South Island of New Zealand.  More Joy is the band’s second album following in similar sonic footsteps to their 2023 debut, Major Works.  They continue to spawn catchily lo-fi nuggets – some twenty-one of them this time round – that brim with a scrappy, off-the-cuff energy that belies the quality of the underlying songcraft.

More Joy is an album informed by both an offbeat indie pop sensibility and a restive art punk obliqueness.  The guitars bring a brightly melodic jangle and the rhythm section a certain languid restraint amid the more woozily dissonant synths and fleeting flares of violin and brass.  Meanwhile, the nasally drawled vocals, and just shy of ragged harmonies, contemplate the world through a wryly cryptic lens.  These fundamentals coalesce together with a seemingly unstudied ease that verges on the wilfully ramshackle.

And then the reverie is abruptly shattered by moments of surprising abrasiveness and atonal flares of noise that rear their heads when least expected.  It is a blend that offers comfort and provokes dislocation with equal relish.  It also conjures some almost euphoric peaks when everything deigns, seemingly almost by accident, to lock-in.  Personal highlights range from the discordantly unfurling Geoffrey Palmer Covers to the languorous exhortations of Avoid The Culture, and then from the raucously uplifting Fingernails to the quietly infectious Blink Of An Eye.