I think I’ve developed some kind of weird fetish for bands from New Zealand. I don’t know why, there’s no reason to it. It’s just for a country with such a small population, there’s some really great music spilling from its shores, and Surf City are my new find.

Kudos is the debut album from the Jan and Dean referencing NZ four piece, and it doesn’t really sound like much else coming from there. Neither, as the name may suggest, are they in line with the current 50s pop/surf celebratory trend for harmonies, riffs and fuzz. In fact, the record makes for a pretty interesting listen.

At its simplest moments, it’s guitars indie pulled from the book of The Strokes with Dinosaur Jr off-kilter vocals in equal measure. At times there are echoes of The Clean’s organ psych, but it’s just a little too current. If anything there’s more in common here with Aussie neighbours Tame Impala.

I must admit, a couple of times during my first listen to the record I did have to check my iTunes hadn’t skipped on to a different band. The album is quite varied, which is certainly not a negative quality to have, it’s just there are parts, odd spirals of distortion tagged onto the starts and ends of tracks, which don’t entirely fit with some of the sharper moments of pure guitar pop.

Surf City are at their strongest when they pull out the choruses, the backing harmonies and drive head first into a refrain. ‘See How The Sun’ demands a sing along by the second listen. At times the mini wig outs steal momentum from the record, but it’s just a little quibble that. In reality tracks like ‘Icy Lakes’ really don’t feel their seven minutes.

Surf City aren’t going to become my new NZ crush, but theirs is an album I’ll certainly come back to. Mostly though, they’re another exciting example of a small country on the other side of the world that’s producing an exciting amount of new music, and these are certainly ones to keep an eye on in the future.