Salad Boys - This Is Glue (2018)

Hailing from the fertile indie pop community of Christchurch, New Zealand, Salad Boys are a fuzzy guitar pop trio whose sound harks back to their hometown's Flying Nun heyday. Singer/guitarist Joe Sampson, bassist Ben Odering, and drummer Jim Nothing (aka James Sullivan), three friends who had been active in a number of other regional bands, found success with the formation of Salad Boys in 2012. Named after a misheard line in a Feelies song and having backed up New Zealand legend David Kilgour of the Clean, the Boys' low-key jangle and strong melodic sense take influence from each of those bands. A self-released mini-album in 2013 caused enough buzz outside Oceania to attract international attention, and they eventually signed with Chicago indie Trouble in Mind Records. Salad Boys' debut LP, Metalmania, was released internationally in September 2015. After some heavy touring that included a jaunt across America, Sampson returned home to begin work on a second album. Recorded at a Christchurch rehearsal space with Sullivan's help between June 2016 and June 2017, This Is Glue was a noisier take on the jangle pop of their debut. It was released in early 2018 by Trouble in Mind, just as the band (which now featured Ben Dodd on bass and Ben Woods on drums) set out on a tour of New Zealand. ~ Timothy Monger.