The Mutton Birds - Flock. The Best Of The Mutton Birds (2002)

Over 4 full-length releases throughout the 90's, New Zealanders the Mutton Birds displayed a serious knack for extremely hummable, consistently satisfying guitar pop (check out "While You Sleep," "Anchor Me," or "Dominion Road."). The songs of Don McGlashan rival those of fellow Kiwi Neil Finn for the earnest-yet-catchy quotient, but McGlashan also adds a flair for dark storytelling that brings his native land's mystery and vastness into the mix, with songs like "A Thing Well Made," "Queen's English," and "Envy of Angels." This is a well-chosen overview, that includes many--but by no means all--of the band's finest moments, and should have you wondering how you went so long without ever hearing of these guys, and will send you back online to get your hands on whatever other Mutton Birds CDs you can find.

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The Mutton Birds - Rain, Steam & Speed (1999)

It seems that the push to break the Mutton Birds was short-lived and took its toll, but the band members, who had moved to the UK, gamely forged on for one more self-released album with a new axeman. This actually resembles the first album more than the last two, a stripped-back, muscular set of expert pop. There are several memorable and hummable numbers such as “Pulled Along By Love” (if I were a rock critic I’d probably have pulled out that old chestnut, “propulsive”, to describe it) and “As Close as This“. This album has not made as great an impact on me — I don’t find the writing as overpoweringly transcendent as on the previous recordings, so I consider it non-essential. Those wishing to investigate McGlashan’s writing further would do better to check out his more recent solo albums.

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The Mutton Birds - Envy Of Angels (1996)

Presumably EMI agreed with this quality assessment, because they put a big push on for this next album, which is if anything even better than Salty. A more polished collection with the weirdness dialled back a touch, Envy of Angels is a collection of adult pop songs that contain myriad enlightening and moving moments. The ultra-sweet pop of “April” and “Come Around” is nice, but it’s in the mid-tempo numbers that McGlashan really pulls at our heartstrings, songs such as “Like This Train” and “While You Sleep“, a series of little vignettes of a quiet, loving life with such vivid lines as “Once on a still, grey motorway day/We jumped the green fence and we lay/Watching all the expensive people speeding away”. “She’s Been Talking“, a misty tale of requited smalltown love, also contains some incredible imagery, as does the elegant closing title track, a love letter to the landscape of home. You have to know what’s under your feet “so you can make things strong enough/to take the weight/the weight of all the people/who haven’t been born.” The supreme harmonic richness of these songs is also manna for the ears. This is an essential album.

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The Mutton Birds - Salty (1993)

Confidence buoyed, McGlashan and co. unveil a lengthy collection of twisted south seas folk-rock. The aforementioned “The Heater” is based around a snaky guitar/bassline and a couple of euphonium solos (that McGlashan eccentricity). Again, insanely catchy, and it contains the immortal lyric: “Although my body is rusting through/I have carried this song for you…It’s from the Sphinx and the Serpent too/So plug me in”. But man, the clever gems just come one after the other, from the missing-you Kiwi-style numbers “Ngaire” and “You Will Return” to an agoraphobic’s lonely pop lament on “In My Room” (“In my room I have built a religion of a kind/I’ve found virtue in things that stay the same”), a cute tribute to hometown “Wellington” and the plaintive cry for love that is “Anchor Me“, what we have here is one of the best pop albums ever recorded. EVER. McGlashan is ably supported by Long’s sneaky guitar parts and Gregg’s sweet harmony vocals. This album sort of changed my musical life a bit.

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The Mutton Birds - The Mutton Birds (1992)

The Mutton Birds’ first album as the new Kiwi supergroup is a solid collection that gives some hints of the greatness that will be revealed on the second and third albums. The overall sound and direction is very much in the brittle, stripped-back tradition of eighties Kiwi pop, not as raucous as The Clean or as deliberately unpolished as The Bats, but still very down-to-earth. McGlashan’s gift for unorthodox lyrics and imagery shine through on “Giant Friend” and his melodic talents are quite evident on the rather catchy “Dominion Road“. There’s definitely something in the cultural isolation of New Zealand that has produced a nifty strain of intelligent pop.

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