Bilders / - Neverlasting
World of Echo
Another Bilders LP, another Bill Direen charm offensive. If you've followed the great NZ artist resolutely from day one, or simply dipped in and out of the hefty catalogue over the past 40 years, you'll know what that means. Direen doesn't so much stick to a single type of songwriting as radiate a unique charisma and means of delivery that feels both unmistakable and, as having 15 or so albums to your name might suggest, apparently inexhaustible. This new set of songs, made with the same personnel as 2024's Dustbin of Empathy (the first time any Bilders album has featured the same line up, actually), is cut through with that classic Flying Nun-styled bedroom psychedelia and effortless melodicism that made Direen so appealing first time round, and shades the corners with a little lingering profoundity, ushering in a subtle Leonard Cohen influence (by way of Yo La Tengo) which for some reason I'd never really noticed before but now can't help but pay attention to. Of course, because its Direen, it's all just slightly wonked off to the side, a folksy love of language crucial to making seemingly simple songs that little more complex. These are the kind of melodies you can enjoy in an instant but also bloom into something else over repeated listens, the lyrical flourishes matched by subtle arrangement choices (that's to Lambchop veterans Matt Swanson and Alan McManus) that'll wrap a fish hook around the noggin if you'll allow 'em. Which, really, is what Direen has been all about since day one. He might now be Neverlasting, but he does keep rolling.
