Marvellous Year

Going back to four incredible Mutton Birds (1991-2002) albums, the classically trained, mild-mannered, 50-year-old New Zealand singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist has written and sung music as divinely and quietly moving as the greatest by the Chills or other Kiwi countrymen — filled with understated romantic sentiment and that island nation's subconscious undercurrents. As ever, the marvelous Marvellous Year has tunes as drop-dead wonderful as 2006's Warm Hand's "Harbour Bridge" or "Toy Factory Fire," or McGlashan's immortal Mutton Birds classics ("While You Sleep," "Ngaire," "Come Around," "April," the list is long); songs so lovely, you're drawn to them like Star Trek tractor beams. Start with the crystalline guitar pop of "Bad Blood" (with its haunting "And nothing is the same, anymore" tag line), the nervous "Not Ready" (its perturbed strings forming striking counter-tension), and the playful title track. But like Warm Hand, one could drop the needle, laser, or digital pointer anywhere, and be securely enveloped by its beautiful blanket of soulful sound and feeling, for this composer and evocative lyricist's pen is once again dipped in buckets of gold. ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover, Rovi