‘Prime Corner’, the brilliant and delightfully unpredictable new record by Auckland, New Zealand indie-rock trio Office Dog, is the perfect antidote for anyone whose life feels a bit too stagnant. Authored by frontman Kane Strang while playing professional house-sitter in West Auckland, this album feels like a sonic tour of someone else’s space while wearing their favorite bathrobe. It balances heavy, driving tension with moments so soft they will make you pause and reflect, beautifully capturing the push and pull of navigating adulthood without any real roots in the ground.
Musically, the band trades in a compelling style of alternative indie rock that heavily channels the classic, jangly-yet-edgy Dunedin sound while incorporating the driving, melancholic grit of 90s indie legends like Yo La Tengo and Built to Spill with a little dash of that post-hardcore Slint sound from time to time. The trio keeps you on your toes by effortlessly shifting gears into “Slowing to a Walk“, a gorgeous sonic breather that proves they can do delicate just as effectively as they can do loud. They also display a masterful control of tension on “Front Row Seat,” a track that showcases their love for alternate guitar tunings, wrapping your ears in a beautifully tense embrace that feels like trying to assemble flat-pack furniture without the instructions.
By the time you reach the brilliant penultimate track, “Gold Things”, you realize you are listening to a band operating entirely on pure, organic instinct, having captured these tracks in a whirlwind five-day recording blitz around Christmas. Office Dog has delivered a wonderfully vibrant, deeply emotional, and fiercely creative ride from start to finish that proves the best spots on the street are often the ones still waiting to be built. If this is what happens when Kane Strang gets left alone in someone else’s house for a month, someone please find this man another villa to watch immediately. Check out this record and give it a spin today!!
Links of interest:
https://www.instagram.com/officedogband
https://ffm.to/office-dog-prime-corner
https://www.flyingnun.co.nz/search?q=OFFICE+DOG+PRIME+CORNER