Sneaky Feelings - The Mercury Moment (2020)

Sometimes there’s a pause in the darkening; just after the twilight, just before night finally sets in. A mercury moment of silvers and greys.

Following a rare performance on Waitangi Day (February 6), Sneaky Feelings announce their first new album since 2017’s critically acclaimed album Progress Junction. The Mercury Moment, the quartet’s new album due out April 17 on Flying Nun Records, is a potent exploration of extinction, redundancy and disappointed dreams as the four songwriters cast their attention on the current state of the world.

Over a songbook of twelve songs, Matthew Bannister, David Pine, Martin Durrant and John Kelcher ruminate on the “ludicrous hopes and bleak future” of humanity that is being avoided. As stark realities are shared, a nonchalant musical backdrop accompanies the songs with chilling indifference.

Since the band’s feature on the iconic Dunedin Double (1982), Sneaky Feelings have existed in a lane of their own design, adding a lush, harmony-infused ingredient to the sounds coming out of Dunedin throughout the 1980s and onwards. Their majestic single ‘Husband House’ climbed to #16 on the NZ chart in 1985, solidifying itself in the cultural canon of New Zealand as a staple.

Sneaky Feelings’ most recent album Progress Junction received wide praise from critics at home, including Sunday Star Time’s Jack Barlow who dubbed it “a vibrant and fresh offering from one of New Zealand’s finest” to William Dart (RNZ New Horizons) who referred to the album as “the unexpected renaissance of one of my favourite bands of all time.”