18 Nov 2024
UsernamePassword

Remember Me? | Join | Recover
Click here to sign in via social networking
  • Articles »
  • Reviews »
  • David Kilgour - David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights - Single/Video Review: Smoke You Right Out Of Here

David Kilgour - David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights - Single/Video Review: Smoke You Right Out Of Here

31 Jul 2019 // A review by darryl baser

Dunedin’s David Kilgour has a music career longer than a pro basketballer’s arm. At a guess 90% of you know his backstory, so I’m not going to write it her, just google ‘David Kilgour Clean Dunedin’, and you’ll see he’s been one of the most influential songwriters to come out of Dunedin.

David Kilgour has been creating critically acclaimed beautiful guitar drives pop since featuring at the birth of the 'Dunedin sound', and this new song sounds as fresh as it’s come from a group of young indie pop stars determined to make their mark.

Kilgour continues to ride a wave of musical brilliance.

The video for Smoke You Right Out Of Here was posted to YouTube by Merge records on July 18 and cracked nearly 3000 views in 12 days. One of the great things about social media (conversely it’s also it’s the greatest downfall) is the ability for people to comment on posts. My favourite comment on Kilgour’s newest 2:48 slab of brilliance is “Love it! Every time I hear a David Kilgour song I feel happy! Just pre-ordered the new album”. - Jesse Welbes.

Smoke You Right Out Of Here is David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights in fine form. It has been captured beautifully by southern audio stalwart and long time pal of Kilgour’s, Tex Houston, along with Tom Bell at Port Chalmers Recording Services. If the rest of the album, coming from Merge Records on September 20th, is even a third as good as this tune, it’ll be a killer LP.

The video for this track is beautiful and spectacular; opening and closing with black and white slow motion shots of waves breaking. There are montage shots of cars traveling, nature close ups, and a bunch of post-production trickery on a couple of cinematic sequences of skylines. It’s a very pretty video, for a dreamy pop tune.

One thing's for sure - I'm looking forward to the album.

Rating: ( 4 / 5 )
 

About David Kilgour

"I change my mind every day about most things and this LP was certainly a result of that way of thinking."

David Kilgour's been changing his mind for a long time, and who can argue with the results? His first band The Clean changed the face of rock music when they kick-started New Zealand’s pop underground in the early 80s. His records — 'The Far Now' is album number six — are monuments to good old-fashioned song craft tinged with a becoming modesty. If you hunger for gorgeous melodies that’ll never make you sick, singing that puts across an emotion without hitting you over the head with it, and guitar playing whose effortless eloquence and virtuosity doesn’t make you want to fine him for playing too many notes, Kilgour’s your man. If you’re looking for a man in single-minded pursuit of rock and roll success, well, that’s another story; he loves music, but he loves life more, and while that attitude hasn’t put his face on too many billboards, it’s probably got a lot to do with why he’s still making records after 25 years.

In the late 70s a teenaged David traded in his surfboard for a guitar. Inspired in equal measures by the punk rock explosion and their Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground, and Beach Boys records, he and his older brother Hamish started The Clean. After a couple years of unstable line-ups and sketchy gigs (I know one guy who first saw them at a Sunday afternoon youth concert sponsored by the Dunedin police department) the brothers hooked up with bassist Robert Scott (later of The Bats) and got terrifyingly good. 'Tally Ho', their first single, sold thousands in their native New Zealand without the benefit of commercial airplay. But after a couple years that yielded some brilliant homemade EPs and concerts that people still talk about, David got sick of the pressure of being a guitar hero and quit to be a painter. Or something. He’s carried on in an episodic way ever since, fronting some bands (Stephen, Pop Art Toasters) and backing up his friends in others (Snapper, Yo La Tengo), starting and stopping The Clean, and pursuing a solo career.

Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for David Kilgour

Releases

Sugar Mouth Re-issue
Year: 2016
Type: Album
The 9th
Year: 2015
Type: Album
End Times Undone
Year: 2014
Type: Album
Left By Soft
Year: 2011
Type: Album
Falling Debris
Year: 2009
Type: Album
The Far Now
Year: 2007
Type: Album
Frozen Orange
Year: 2004
Type: Album
Here Come The Cars
Year: 2003
Type: Album
Cracks In The Sidewalk
Year: 2002
Type: Album
A Feather In The Engine
Year: 2001
Type: Album
David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights
Year: 1998
Type: Album
First Steps & False Alarms
Year: 1995
Type: Album
Sugar Mouth
Year: 1994
Type: Album
Buy Online @ Mightyape

Other Reviews By darryl baser

MEDaL - Album Review: Sequela
14 Dec 2022 // by darryl baser
Christchurch trio MEDaL are a combination of many years of New Zealand musical history. Singer and guitar slinger David Mulcahy was in JPSE and Superette, bass player John Billows has spent time with The Renderers and Dark Matter and drummer Mark Whyte is part of Into The Void.
Read More...
The Bobby Holidays - Album Review: At The Beach
13 Dec 2022 // by darryl baser
The Bobby Holidays' At The Beach opens with the song Jane, syncopation is to the fore with a great horn section blowing against bass, drums and guitar. The song has an up tempo happy summer vibe.
Read More...
Mad Cow - Single Review: Same Boat
01 Dec 2022 // by darryl baser
Same Boat is the latest single to be released Taranaki 3-piece Mad Cow. Mad Cow are mainstays of the New Plymouth have been around since the 1990’s in the North Island’s music scene, evolving from school band No Comment.
Read More...
The New Existentialists - EP Review: Last Days of the Internet
23 Nov 2022 // by darryl baser
It might seem like George D Henderson has been a part of the New Zealand music landscape for about as long as Keith Richards has been playing guitar. He’s been in the Flying Nun arena with The Puddle based in Dunedin.
Read More...
Nika - Single Review: Saviour Complex
03 Nov 2022 // by darryl baser
A song with an interesting title will always grab my attention, and the idea of people with a saviour complex has always fascinated me, so when the new song by Nika called Saviour Complex was offered to me to review I almost somersaulted. The song opens with a gently and alluring piano melody before Nika’s voice kicks in and from the first notes some vocal training is obvious.
Read More...
The RVMES - Single Review: Simple Things
05 Oct 2022 // by darryl baser
Oh My God. There are bangers then there’s this tune.
Read More...
VÏKÆ - EP Review: Love Games
25 Aug 2022 // by darryl baser
Veronika Bell, known to music fans as Vikae, has been composing and producing music for a good few years, and is gaining some crossover traction between the dance and pop worlds. While she writes many of her tunes on a piano, and can perform them beautifully with piano and her impressive voice, it is the dance-styled pop versions of her tune which have been garnering her acclaim.
Read More...
Mecuzine - Album Review: Locksmith Thief
21 Jul 2022 // by darryl baser
Now that’s a great way to open an album. Bruised and Broken is the first track of Mecuzine’s new album Locksmith Thief, and my god what an epic track to open their new record.
Read More...
View All Articles By darryl baser

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