The Jefferies brothers,
Peter
and
Graeme
, were both mainstays of the New Zealand musical scene for a long time, working together in
This Kind of Punishment
, then on their own (
as a solo artist,
in
the Cakekitchen
). They got their start in the early '80s with the post-punk band
Nocturnal Projections
. Sounding like a scrappy, homemade take on the sounds coming from the U.K., especially
Wire
,
Joy Division
, and
the Fall
, the band only made a few singles in 1982-1983 before moving on to become
. Their output has been reissued in bits and bobs, but 2018's collection on
Dais Records
lives up to the title of
Complete Studio Recordings
and gives people who missed them the first time around a chance to hear their unsurprisingly -- given their future track record -- excellent work.
's guitar playing is wiry and fiery,
's vocals swing from majestically detached to insistently frantic sometimes in the space of a single line, and the rhythm section of bassist
Brett Jones
and drummer
Gordon Rutherford
push things along in powerful fashion. It's noisy, brisk, and urgent music played with passion and enthusiasm. That it never caught on with the world at large is mostly down to the band's location; it certainly wasn't because these singles aren't as good as the sounds coming out of the U.K. at the same time. Stack the menacing slow grind of "You'll Never Know" against
or the frantic "Nerve Ends in Power Lines" against
the Projections
don't come up short. It wouldn't be a shock to learn that when bands from the U.K. went to New Zealand to tour and found themselves trying to follow
' opening set, they'd have to put in some extra effort to match the locals. While the world at large may not have been listening, bands around New Zealand certainly were, and many of the songs here (like the skittering "In Darkness" and the darkly poppy "In Purgatory") seem like blueprints for the early
Flying Nun
sound. This collection unearths and cleans up some absolutely essential New Zealand musical history and is something any self-respecting fan of early-'80s post-punk sounds should track down immediately. ~ Tim Sendra