Live Review: Sonny & The Sunsets, Surf City, Community Radio, Adults

Four shades of indie guitar pop music were on display at Goodgod with Adults being at the more obtuse end of the spectrum. The trio knocked out ramshackle, skeletal post-punk songs built around restless melodies and rhythmic edge. Their songs gave the impression of being thrown together casually yet beneath the Pavement-esque delivery there lurked some interesting and restless musicality. Once the ears and brain adjusted they were occasionally frustrating and often very good.

Community Radio include members of Youth Group, Songs and The Vines with their sound sitting firmly in the vicinity of the former two. Their dreamy, softly propulsive songs blended in well with Goodgod's dimly lit, basement grotto feel and hypnotic spinning mirrorball. The interplay between guitarist Cameron Emerson-Elliott and bassist Patrick Matthews stood out as a highlight, with intermeshed rhythms and tangled notes working out some wonderful melodies.

New Zealanders Surf City re-energised the audience with a set that had its fair share of frustrations but showed enough to justify the critical acclaim for their two albums. A bass cabinet upped and died in the first song leaving the band to battle on with the low end coming only from the stage monitors. It seemed to throw them, disrupting their vibe on stage, unnecessarily so as it still sounded great out front. They showed how well they've mastered the skill of blending a strong rhythm section with layered, effect-rich guitars and hook-laden vocals. You could hear the ghosts of the last 30 years of New Zealand independent music, though with Surf City's own stamp applied.

Sonny & The Sunsets played their set in near darkness yet their music was the brightest and most unabashed pop music of the night. Sure there was an abundance of dark lyrical themes but the band framed them with such infectious indie, surf and rock'n'roll pop shapes that they won the audience over from the get-go. Goofy songs about murder, love, romance, aliens and girls filled the room via Sonny Smith's laconic drawl, which often brought to mind a jerkier, new wave Lou Reed. The musicality of The Sunsets was a real highlight, from Tahlia Harbour's girl-group backing vocals to the way they allowed so much space in their sound when it was required. This was a set of songs that sounded otherworldly and familiar, simple yet quirky, all at the same time.