Fire Vinyl & CDs

Review: The world lost one of the all-time great indie songwriters when The Chills leader Martin Phillipps passed away in 2024. The New Zealand jangle-pop pioneers started out in the 80s, writing memorable melodies and beautiful harmonies and went on to have a career lasting more than 40 years. They helped coin the 'Dunedin sound' - a catch-all name given to the indie scene in the university city of Dunedin in the remote east coast of the South Island of New Zealand - a place that punched way above its weight in terms of cultural relevance and great indie music for its size. This release comes as a reminder of their greatness and includes a whopping 20 songs (it's a double LP and on gold(!)) from the band's early years revisited. As is often the case with tireless creatives, there's a vault of unfinished work that often never gets completed. Philipps dedicated moments at the end part of his life to fleshing out these song ideas, resulting in their completion nearly 40 years after they were written. 'If This World Was Made For Me' is the first song to be unearthed from this collection and is as beautiful as indie psychedelia gets with Philipps' vocal harmonies transcendent in their splendour.

Review: Jangle pop pioneers The Chills came out of the Dunedin scene in the 80s, which grew to become one of the most important movements in indie rock history, largely thanks to the output on the Flying Nun label, which The Chills were apart of when they first started out. The Chills had their own Brian Wilson in Martin Phillipps: a prolific songwriter with an ear for melody and harmony up there with the best that's ever been. Sadly, he passed away in 2024, but this album is released as a reminder of just how good he was and it's a timely balm for the grief felt within the indie rock community. The songs here come from work Phillipps did shortly before he died, where he opened his vault of unfinished songs that he started early in the Chills' career and fleshed them out to finally release them all these years later. We can assure you; it's been well worth the wait. Sublime stuff.