Times New Viking / Paisley Reich

Siltbreeze

What a year 2006 was for Times New Viking. Their hot debut album under their belt, the trio set off on a nationwide U.S. tour (including two scorching performances at SxSW), followed by a springtime East Coast jaunt in support of The Country Teasers, not to mention various scraps in the puniverse of new weird America, and drawing blood from the likes of Magik Markers, Lambsbread and Burning Star Core. All of which is fine and good -- love those chops! -- but fans (and label execs) have been gnashing their teeth in anticipation, wondering "where's the next record?"  The Paisley Reich ably avoids D.S.A. syndrome (an acronym coined by The Shadow Ring meaning "difficult second album").Having developed even more vim and vigor, TNV's blur of high-concept pop, crud, and crunch is staggering. Scribes who languor within the compnoscenti of glossy print continue to peep about parallels to Guided By Voices and Pavement; those of us paying our own way recall the glorious lo-fi shimmer of nascent Flying Nun via The Clean, Great Unwashed, and Max Block. So if you're travelling up and down the SH1 somewhere between Christchurch and Dunedin and hear the luring strains of harmony and distemper, know that it is not The Kilgour Bros., Robert Scott nor the family Crook. It's the malcontented rumble of Times New Viking wistfully channeling spirits from the grime of Washington Beach to the shine of the Otago Peninsula. And in Reich-speak, that may take a thousand years to achieve, but you don't have to be a Scottish weaver to know that paisley wasn't patterned in a day. Patience is a grace. In the meantime, hold onto the rail and let it rock!

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