Product Description
Brand New ~ Sealed! Tenth Anniversary Limited Edition Of The Fourth Album By Highly Acclaimed New Zealand Group, The Phoenix Foundation On 180 Gram Orange Vinyl! Includes Download Code.
Born in 2020, ‘Buffalo’ features a number of the group’s most enduring songs, from the gently psychedelic drift of opener “Eventually”, the idiosyncratic title track (once covered by Lorde, pop pickers!), the sugar-sweet “Flock Of Hearts” to the soaring melancholy swell of closing tracks “Wonton” and “Golden Ship”. ‘Buffalo’ took the band on quite a journey. In 2013, the group were invited onto prestigious UK music show ‘Later with Jools Holland’, where they performed “Buffalo” and “Flock Of Hearts”, exposing them to a whole new audience, and saw their global audience grow exponentially. It features guest appearances from fellow musical travellers Connan Mockasin and Lawrence Arabia, and handsome cover art (that won that year’s Vodafone Music Award for best sleeve design) by regular designer Paul Johnson. In 2020 it was voted 9th in Radio New Zealand’s list of the best local albums of the 2000’s ~ a testament to its enduring appeal.
Side 1:
Eventually
Buffalo
Flock of Hearts
Pot
Bitte Bitte
Side 2:
Skeleton
Orange & Mango
Bailey’s Beach
Wonton
Golden Ship
Geoff –
The drowsy/easy psych-drone-pop amble of "Eventually" starts the Phoenix Foundation's 2010 full-length album on an agreeably understated pace The drowsy/easy psych-drone-pop amble of "Eventually" starts the Phoenix Foundation's 2010 full-length album on an agreeably understated pace, as good a way to set a tone as a full-on blast might be. The main guitar line, a little Feelies and a little post-punk epic art, mixed with a bit of classic rock imagery thanks to the lyrics, finds a kind of happy blend that the band has worked to make its own. The similar sense of gentle fusion and picking among the ruins of the past crops up throughout Buffalo -- the polite Velvets/pub rock chug of "Flock of Hearts" shaped by some sweet chimes and a bit of distant Mellotron/vocal chorusing along with a very glammy guitar break. Songs like "Skeleton" find a more direct hook/lyric approach, while the sweet uptempo pep of "Orange & Mango" shades into a swirling series of guitar loop breaks and shuddering keyboard surge. "Wonton" captures another sense of understated ease, almost breezy in feeling and sound. Samuel Flynn Scott's vocals often come across as nondescript but aim to be familiar rather than remarkable, suiting the sense of easy immediacy here -- the appeal of being what you expect. Then again, on "Pot" the chorale effect is higher pitched and warmly inviting, so a little twist can do nicely. Some fun lyrical touches abound: "All of these spots are being turned into gallery spaces" on "Bitte Bitte" leads into a nice little observation of the necessity of difference -- the line "Please don't be my friend" could almost be from an early Flying Nun band instead of a current one. "Golden Ship" ends the album on a nice full-bodied punch.