22 Nov 2024
UsernamePassword

Remember Me? | Join | Recover
Click here to sign in via social networking

PlasticGroove - Some Groovy PlasticGroove Singles

29 Jan 2013 // A review by Peter-James Dries

PlasticGroove is that band with the black and white cartoon cut out masks and the suits. 

When asked about the masks, one of the semi-anonymous members explained the masks were to bring the focus back to the music, not the celebrity behind the performers. The interviewer didn't ask about the suits... 

The mask idea isn’t a new one; Slipknot is probably the one example from the Rock section of iTunes and Daft Punk the electro. New or not the quirky cartoon masks would set the band apart if the music ever failed to, which isn’t likely. No other band today effortlessly merges 80’s bass lines and synth with 90’s rock and metal riffs.

PlasticGroove are not destined to be one hit wonders. Each of the three singles I listened too had a different vibe, a different sound, almost a different genre entirely, yet retained a certain PlasticGroove feel. They’d do well as a live band, with their masks and danceable songs.

Strange Lands Fall

The track is very much like Pet Shop Boys, the old Pet Shop Boys, not that newish song I’m with Stupid, made famous by the lads from Little Britain. The music sounds like something off the soundtrack to ID’s 1993 DOS-based FPS shooter Doom. Dark. Ominous. Dreamy. Atmospheric and rocky simultaneously.

The video, filmed in a car park, features a Wellington Roller derby team, circling the band like sharks. Towards the end the Roller girls usurp the band, leaving the masked members to dance and groove, or in the case of the shorter one, stand there looking around.

Right Now

Right Now sounds like a punky take on Walk like an Egyptian by the Bangles with a Metallica-esque guitar solo thrown in the middle. The song ebbs and flows, hard and distorted down to quiet moments of bass and drums. A song that teases and plays, making you jump then making you wait in eager anticipation for the next jumpy bit.

The video for the song is a journey though my old home town, Wellington, cut with the band performing in their characteristic masks, their audience, or perhaps a silent member, a mannequin dressed in only a mask and a pair of pink crotchless panties.

Junky Monkey

Junky Monkey is more raw, chaotic and reverby than the other two tracks. Darker too, if you get past the allusion of a monkey as a whimsical creature and instead look as the foul beasts as the de-evolution of a human. Sort of Alice in Chains like at times. Acid Rock with a cowbell. 


PlasticGroove’s tracks are available where ever you find PlasticGroove on the net. Look out for their new single Pointless this February. Show your support for PlasticGroove by liking their page on Facebook and voting for them at http://www.theaudience.co.nz/

 

About PlasticGroove

PlasticGroove are a retro futurist Kiwi band from Wellington, New Zealand. A multi instrumentalist attack combines 80's new wave and modern rock influences into a toe tapping, head banging, butt shaking frenzy.




Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for PlasticGroove

Releases

Feel
Year: 2016
Type: EP

Other Reviews By Peter-James Dries

Ra Charmian - Album Review: Waiata Wairua
08 Oct 2024 // by Peter-James Dries
Waiata Wairua is an album that wouldn’t feel out of place performed in a late night jazz hall in some alternate history where the successes of the Maori battalion lead to a proliferation of Te Reo worldwide. The sort of interest that saw your dad singing in French in the 60's, when Mireille Mathieu was knocking about.
Read More...
Ben Lloyd - Album Review: Leap of Faith
26 May 2024 // by Peter-James Dries
For over 30 years, this self-taught rocker from Mt Maunganui has been writing music. Now, for the first time since 2013, we finally get to hear his songs.
Read More...
Yann Le Dorré - Album Review: The Circus is Closed
19 Dec 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
“We are Sex Bob-Omb and we're here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff!” - Scott Pilgrim vs.
Read More...
Sanoi - Album Review: Echoes Of Home
25 Nov 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
Electronica offers no escapism for me. It’s more of what I already have.
Read More...
Throng - EP Review: Decoherence
20 Oct 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
You know that thing where the letter B has a personality, or words have textures and colours? That’s called synaesthesia.
Read More...
Fortress Europe - Album Review: Old World
10 Oct 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
Have you ever been torn between listening to Mozart or Periphery? Does Epica have too much of that darn singing for your tastes?
Read More...
Yurt Party - Album Review: Yurt Party
07 Sep 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
It sure isn't summer, and this is really not the Balkans, but Yurt Party’s new self-titled album refutes that. Back with another one of them Balkan rocking beats, Yurt Party’s debut is jazzy, erratic, and full of zest and energetic grooves, with flavour notes of ska, dub, and bergamot.
Read More...
day13n - Album Review: /7/13/7/
06 Aug 2023 // by Peter-James Dries
I’m too old for this world. We’ve devolved to the point where music is only as good as the soundtrack to your 10 second TikTok, and the thirty thousand copies recycling the idea.
Read More...
View All Articles By Peter-James Dries

NZ Top 10 Singles

  • APT.
    ROSÉ And Bruno Mars
  • DIE WITH A SMILE
    Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars
  • BIRDS OF A FEATHER
    Billie Eilish
  • TASTE
    Sabrina Carpenter
  • I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
    Gracie Abrams
  • ESPRESSO
    Sabrina Carpenter
  • SAILOR SONG
    Gigi Perez
  • LOSE CONTROL
    Teddy Swims
  • A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
    Shaboozey
  • GOOD LUCK, BABE!
    Chappell Roan
View the Full NZ Top 40...
muzic.net.nz Logo
100% New Zealand Music
All content on this website is copyright to muzic.net.nz and other respective rights holders. Redistribution of any material presented here without permission is prohibited.
Report a ProblemReport A Problem