it's a mystery how we're so unaware

sometimes you take a long time to express affection for someone or something that you love.

i love the bats.

try doing a google search for this fixture of new zealand indie rock (before that they were 'alternative', before that 'new wave'--at least according to the daddy's highway press kit, or was it law of things, i forget?). try it, and all you'll get is 'release the bats'--and not even the birthday party song.
oh, you may stray across the myspace page or wiki listing for the bats, but it may well be obscured by the fog of lesser entities. you would do well to clear away the cobwebs and give an ear to one of the most enduring and consistent bands i've ever heard, a four-piece outfit who sound as fresh and vital on their 2009 release the guilty office as they did in 1984 when they began making records.

i first heard the bats about six or seven years ago (oof) on local 'college-radio' station kexp, and from the first notes i was hooked (on the guitar hooks! har). i have tried several times to figure out what song it was, but everytime i'm convinced i know what it was i get fogged out by another that's just as jangly-rifficly good. it was either boogey man off 1991's lp fear of god, or one of the brilliant tracks from the previous year's law of things.it's ahrd to tell, as the sound from that 'first period' is like one huge fantastic album. from 1984 to 1995 releases came out every year or two, but since then the rate has slowed somewhat, with an entire decade seperating 1995's couchmaster from the shock re-emergence of at the national grid. it's been another four years until guilty office. these extended gaps stem from the fact that the bats, unlike many bands, are fairly heterogenous in their activities. songwriter and lead robert scott writes approximately two songs-a-day by some accounts (that may be an exaggeration) and performs solo, with nz legends the clean, and with a handful of local friends, most recently gina rocco, with whom he has released a solid full-length and a stunningly spare ep, called moonlight potato which to me, recalls his work with jane sinnott as the magick heads--a ridiculously difficult-to-track-down band (although douglas wolk still has an available release at dark beloved cloud). from what i understand, the bats do new stuff when robert comes up to christchurch, where kean and woodward, and grant all live, from the otago port of dunedin where he lives. up north the other three bats members keep active with the wonderfully jangly minisnap, for whom kaye writes most of the material.
i keep using the term 'jangly' and it's a bit of a crutch, i admit, but the reason is that the bats, along with the clean and the chills, were part of what defined the so-called 'dunedin sound' slapped onto flying nun bands in the eighties the way 'grunge' was slapped onto everything in the pacific northwest a decade later. i only mention these three bands because they're really the only ones in the fn stable who fit the name! the verlaines had a little jangle-jangle too, but the tall dwarfs didn't, and many of the subsequent bands on that label didn't either. anyway, i'll search for other adjectives!

after hearing the bats on the radio, i couldn't find out anything about them! it was very frustrating (especially since i was sub-savvy on the intraweb at the time), and it was probably more than six months before i happened to stumble across fear of god in a used cd bin. i actually let out an embarrassing whoop in the store. i got it home and popped it in the stereo, and just sat there in my chair for the duration, just listening. i can list the amount of records i have done that with on maybe seven fingers.
the used bin became my tried and true ally since most of the flying nun output has been o.o.p. for longer than i care to admit. i found the all of the first five albums (i don't count compiletely bats because it's a compilation, although i don't have it, and i want it desperately) and the stellar ep spill the beans (featuring mac mccaughan 'duelling wahs' with kaye!!!) in them bins, and when national grid came out i was so stoked to be able to actually buy a new bats record!
so often in my musical history, i've come across great bands too late to be a part of their extant lives, like young marble giants or beat happening, and it's been very special to me that not only have the bats (and the clean, for that matter) kept going when they easily could've called it a day before i'd even come across them, but i've even had the great privelege of corresponding with them. it's such a wonderfull feeling to have such a small connection with a band one loves...

back to the record at hand, the bats' first on nz label arch hill (who released the clean's live album mashed as well, i should note):
much has been written already about how the guilty office 'breaks new ground' with the sound, but stays true to the 'driving guitars' and lyrical 'darkness' affiliated with past releases. well, that's true, i suppose, but not definitive. the 'bats sound' being referred to is a simple set-up of the solid backdrop of malcolm grant's drums and paul kean's perfect-punctuation bass-work (on his hand-made 'barracuda' bass--so cool if you can find piccies of it). this tight rhythm works the low end and the bridge to kaye woodward's soaring riffs and jangly (sorry--that word again) trebly lines and hooks is made by robert scott's solid and subtle rhythm guitar (mostly, sometimes they switch roles). all the instrumentation is set of by the frankly lovely harmonies of bob and kaye's voices. bob has a low croon-to-high warble and kaye sets him off well with her sweet melodic backing vocals.
all of those characteristics have been present since 1983, and they continue to be the definition of what a bats album sounds like. which apparently draws some accusations of 'samey-ness,' which i find ridiculous. i think if a band sounds identifiable from record to record, then that's a good thing. if they sound the same i can see a doorway for objection, but when a band like the bats--or for that matter like the mountain goats, who sound like the same chords are used ad infinitum (not a criticism, btw)--places a high priority on the songwriting, as they do, then such claims become more baseless.
for the record, a lot of the 'new sound' talk comes from the strings (with harp!) arrangements done for the album by allan starrett, though these commentators are either forgetful or unaware that the band has past associations with dunedin's alastair galbraith. speaking of the starrett contributions, it was a neat experience for me to follow the progression of one of the songs on the record, crimson enemy. i first heard the song on a 'live to air' recording of the bats on kfjc (a san francisco college radio station) in 2006, a recording i got directly from robert, actually. it's a song the band 'just learnt up today' according to the recording, and i had to sit there for nearly two years waiting for it to resurface! slightly faster and higher-pitched than originally, the song popped back up on the bats' myspace page late last year, but didn't yet have the added strings. than the record came and the song had overdubs and other juicy studio details. it was really cool for me, trying to learn how to master my own songs, to see how theirs progressed.
anyway (how could this be one of my posts without an 'anyway'...), i should stop this epic post now.
if you can find bats records buy them. if you find actual vinyl bats records, buy them and email me and snail mail them to me and i'll paypal you!
seriously though, the bats defy the rolling-stones-dinosaur-please-please-stop model of how a band matures and ages, still making great, and sadly underappreciated, music. they have this new record (only a few months old!) and a 7"(i think?) in the works. they're touring europe this summer. one can only hope they'll make it to seattle eventually...

get onboard, ay?