By Phil Scarisbrick

It’s been some five years since Wellington sextet, The Phoenix Foundation, released their last album – Give Up Your Dreams. The intervening period has seen the rise of another Kiwi star in Nadia Reid, who has released three wonderful records – culminating in this year’s Out of My Province. Now, The Phoenix Foundation are back with their sixth album, Friend Ship.

Hounds of Hell conjures up images of Dante’s Inferno, channelling its message of impending doom through the climate crisis, as we eek closer and closer to the precipice. This perilous proposition is positioned at the centre of a love story, and wonders if it can survive the planet’s inevitable fate. Reid’s voice carries more authority than The Phoenix Foundation front man, Samuel Flynn Scott’s, which has a fragility that sits in tune with the perilous future pondered within. Both act as the perfect foil for the other, allowing the conflict of the lyrics to feel more tangible.

Centred around a harpsicord, the music swells beneath the dual vocals, driven by a psych-pop beat. It has a Mamas and Papas feel to it at times, and like their biggest hit California Dreamin’, balances the melancholy and sweetness to tell a poignant love story against a more sinister backdrop. And as sinister backdrops go, an impending apocalypse is right up there.

Friend Ship is released on 19th October on Memphis Industries. Nadia Reid was the cover star for Issue Four of our zine, which is available here.