Neive Strang embraces comfort, Void Waves goes retro-electro and the return of Bon Iver

Tony Stamp reviews the latest album releases every week on The Sampler.

Full of slow-burning ballads, this album marks a stylistic shift away from Neive Strang’s past work but one that makes complete sense.

On her first album and follow-up EP, Strang made grungy blues-rock, and that DNA is still here, but switching to acoustic guitar and foregrounding her singing voice has made a big difference.

When she hits on a melody like the chorus line in ‘Gather Round’ - a warm falsetto repeating the title - you realise what a smart decision it is.

Strang worked with Sean Donnelly (better known as SJD) as her producer. There are accoutrements like synth and slide guitar, but they’re wisely slight.

Some of the tunes on Find Me in the Rabbit Holeare real heartwarmers, and the album’s tone finds Strang at her most comforting. When she does inject some darkness, it’s deeply felt and well-earned.

This pleasant surprise - a mix of lo-fi drum machines, rubbery synths, and tuneful guitars, delivered with some punk brashness and goth frost - comes from a studio basement in Auckland.

Using the name Void Waves, Aaron Wood was influenced by ‘cold wave’ - a genre that emerged in the ‘70s using early electronic instruments to form chilly sounds.

On The Other Side, crude slabs of drum machine and open-armed washes of synth butt up against Wood's voice and guitar, creating a pleasing tension between man and machines.

He has a knack for making the most of a handful of notes, with tunes sometimes cinematic and often hummable.

In the years since Justin Vernon launched the Bon Iver project with some lone-man-in-a-cabin mythologising, its artistic trappings have swollen, sometimes to an off-putting degree.

Vernon has collaborated with bona fide superstars like Taylor Swift and Kanye West while keeping things esoteric - giving songs unpronounceable names, cloaking his voice in custom-made electronics, and referring to this album as a book with a prologue.

On this new album, he has the tunes to back it up. ‘Everything is Peaceful Love’ hinges on a pretty incredible chorus melody, ‘Walk Home’ features catchy repurposed vocals, and ‘Day One’ emulates classic soul by way of hip-hop.

SABLE, fABLE has been categorised as a return to Bon Iver’s folk roots, but there are plenty of dalliances outside that, and while his falsetto-led tunes are good, it’s those avant-garde impulses that tip them toward thrilling.