RECORD REVIEW: Ringlets, New Life (2024)

 

RECORD REVIEW: Ringlets, New Life (2024)

 

 

i tell ya, i’ve got the Ringlets fever. i’m fucking mad for Ringlets. i can’t get enough. if i had to pick a favourite (formed in the last five years) new zealand band it’d be Ringlets all the way. the interview i did with them earlier this year is one of the funniest things i’ve ever published. i love them too much and i wish they’d make some t-shirts already. when i heard they were putting out a new single i preordered it as soon as it was available. i told myself i wasn’t gonna listen to it till i had the 7” because i’m some kind of hipster scum but, annoyingly, someone fucked up and my copy got delayed (i was promised it would show up around friday the 7th) and it only manifested days after i made plans to leave wellington for a week† (wednesday the 12th). so my copy is currenting sitting in the flying nun store in wellington, a 3 hour drive away from where i’m typing from. 


the A side of the new single is pretty much better than the last album, and the only problem with that is that it makes their back catalogue kind of unlistenable, production wise. they’ve got a whole team of people working to make sure they sound better than everyone else and i really enjoy this new, glammed up Ringlets sound. i guess they got tired of their goth influences because they’re doing, like, a weird indie-post-punk-funk thing now. cool, i guess. they’ve got some nice funky percussion but it’s still the ringlets you love(?). i’d compare it to scottish postcard bands like Josef K and Orange Juice (iykyk), and i also detect more then a little Macho Macho influence, but whether that’s intentional or not remains to be seen.


i’ve had the single on repeat for a few days and i’m really struggling to find something wrong with it. could the guitars be louder? does it run a little longer than it needs to? do the lyrics actually mean anything? these aren’t real complaints. these are complaints you only arrive at when you can’t actually find anything wrong with what you’re listening to. it’s a pretty perfect song (maybe i’m just trying to justify spending like 30$ on it before i even heard it). 


the better production and clear effort spent on tightening the groove and band interplay (they go in 6/8 for a few bars there. heady stuff.) elevate this over their album, which still holds up, but is much weaker in direct comparison. i can’t speak for the quality of the vinyl release because i haven’t fucking gotten it yet, but i’ll add some kind of an addendum at some point when i can listen to it on something other then my glorified hairdryer of a hifi setup. the artwork looks nice, i guess? what do you want from me?


of course, i brought early release tickets for their show next month, who’s line up seems custom made for me and me only. everyone tells me Dale Kerrigan is cool but i can’t trust shoegaze fans' opinions on music so i’m not gonna spread any hype (yet). i’m refusing to listen to any of their recorded output so you’ll hear my real take when that show review comes out. in other news, there’s an eyegum with Feshh in a few weeks, and there’s that nuclear winter festival at moon coming, featuring some bands i like and some bands i don’t. if i don’t bankrupt myself or drown in whanganui river between now and when i get back to the capital i’ll see you there. 


final score *****/5

 

 

†(THE TOP 5 BEST THINGS ABOUT NOT BEING IN WELLINGTON: 5. second hand stores not as picked over 4. no traffic noise outside your window 3. food is 5$ cheaper across the board 2. you don’t have to cross a highway to get across a street 1. no running into people who want to know what i think about their demo) 

 

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