There’s always something enlivening about The Ruby Suns. Ryan McPhun – without a doubt, the best onomatopoeic New Zealand name ever – has a talent for creating pop melodies that remind you of the happiest summer days of your childhood, the best dances at teenage parties, and those moments when all the annoying shit that comes with adulthood just didn’t, y’know, exist.
Christopher, The Ruby Suns’ latest record, takes the band’s delectable pop and indulges with it some sparkling dance-floor attention. Desert of Pop is the song 1986 needed to arrest the emergence of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, while In Real Life is Riders on the Storm under the dance-funk tutelage of Kool and the Gang. Kingfisher Call Me is ethereal and just a little bit too Australian-Geographic-plastic-hippy-meets-Hall and Oates for refined tastes. Jump In is the sound of summer when all you need is a Spandau Ballet memory to get you in the mood.
On Starlight, the sights, sounds and rhythms are sloppy, but in a 4am, ‘fuck I’ve had a good night and don’t want to stop dancing’ sort of a way, while Futon Fortress is a grooving wonder that just doesn’t need to stop. Then there’s the reflective Heart Attack, when images of hair gel, shoulder pads and baggy pants are used for good, not evil. I don’t know who Christopher is, or what he means to The Ruby Suns. But his heart must be in the right place to provide this much of a good time.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: Desert Of Pop
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: SPANDAU BALLET, HUMAN LEAGUE
In A Word: Pop
