Wellington’s Phoenix Foundation are big enough at home for their sixth album to have entered the New Zealand chart at No 2, but their lush, cosmic abstractions haven’t made much commercial headway elsewhere. The album’s title was inspired by a friend’s prediction that they would always be big fish in a small pond, which gave them the freedom to regroup and acknowledge a love of the same 70s pop that begat Metronomy’s The English Riviera. The jaunty title track sardonically appraises their prospects (“Now we’re older, are we even part of the scene?”), but prospects are evidently less important than the need to saturate songs in whipped-cream harmonies (prog-lite opener Mountain) and Eaglesish twilit mellowness (Jason). Bob Lennon John Dylan – surely title of the year – is a love song wrapped in piano-led new wave that’s not a million miles from Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out, while Celestial Bodies is a euphoric disco excursion. Ironically, giving up their dreams has seen Phoenix Foundation trimming off some of the cosmic fat and becoming more focused – worldwide success could be in the offing.
