Send "The Phoenix Foundation " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Stuff |
 For my money Happy Ending, Wellington band Phoenix Foundation's third album, was the best album I heard in 2007. With its poppy psychedelic ripples, joyous moments of cheerful backing vocals of "ooh hoos", shoops and some searing falsettos it was like Phil Spector and The Beta Band had set up shop on Cuba St and let in the Phoenix Foundation through some mysterious side door. In the intervening three years we have seen several solo albums and side projects, including providing the soundtrack to Taika Waititi's Boy - which must have seemed logical after the success they had with Eagle Vs Shark. Their fourth album continues on the heavy, textured, dreamy blueprint they began with Happy Ending. Eventually is an interesting opening as its dream-like waves slowly draw you in, its leisurely pace deliberate and unhurried as it welcomes you into a world of possibilities as friends wander in raincoats up Mt Victoria before feasting on coffee and scones. It is the perfect opening before getting down to business with first single Buffalo, about a mystical creature that lives on the ocean floor and roams around the Pacific Ocean. It has a hypnotic breakdown of overlapping guitars and rich harmonies, which is all part of the band's trademark as tracks often begin with elaborate introductions before intricate breakdowns. "What will we do now that all the yuppies have replaced us?" Sam Scott asks on the clean-sounding Bitte Bitte, another example of the band's quirky gift for interesting lyrics. While Skeleton and the 60s sounding Orange & Mango are not among the band's best efforts, all is forgiven after the slow-burning Golden Ship hits another beautiful, effortless crescendo as sweet harmonies are replaced by this churning acid-tinged rock of guitars and organ that lifts you towards the stars....full text |
| Undertheradar |
| Over the course of three albums The Phoenix Foundation have charmed, thrilled and delighted a growing legion of fans, myself included. With every eagerly anticipated release, my expectations have almost invariably been exceeded. I say ‘almost’ because last year the band released the Merry Kriskmass EP; a pleasant and unobtrusive effort that I hoped wasn’t a sign of things to come. While it was entirely listenable, it just wasn’t essential by The Phoenix Foundation’s standards. As it turns out, that EP’s style hasn’t been carried over to fourth album Buffalo; but unfortunately the aforementioned adjectives have....full text |
| Bbc |
| A peculiarity of the rise of the blogosphere as an agenda-setting force is that while there now exists a sprawling global network of hipsters that will gluttonously pounce on the demos of unsigned US chillwave artists the second they’re uploaded to wordpress, it is, conversely, perfectly possible for a genuinely successful band from a quieter quadrant of the world to possess almost no international profile. Wellington, New Zealand’s The Phoenix Foundation have been together for over a decade, enjoying acclaim at home, but making painstaking progress globally. Released on NZ’s ultra-credible Flying Nun label, 2007’s Happy Ending kick-started interest overseas, but it’s taken a veritable age for TPF’s fourth album Buffalo (released domestically in April 2010) to score a UK release, finally arriving under the auspices Memphis Industries. Still, this delay is no terrible thing, as TPF arrive very much matured into the finished article. The band in no way reinvents the wheel, but their dreamy, synth-heavy spin on Byrds/Beach Boys-style pop is immaculately crafted. Certainly it’s hard to believe a 19-year-old dweeb in his bedroom would be liable to come up with a pop song as perfectly overwhelming as Buffalo’s title-track, a sweet, dreamy jangle that’s abruptly hoiked into the stratosphere by an incandescent synth arpeggio of astonishing vitality. And such are the chops brought to bear on Orange & Mango that a truly dreadful chorus lyric (“It takes two to tango / Like an orange and a mango”) doesn’t really get in the way of it splendour, reminiscent of the poppier moments of Sufjan Stevens’ mighty Illinois. Elsewhere, the band tends to plough a less-energetic furrow: it’s ultimately going to be down to personal taste if a record dominated by low-tempo, medium-hooky, warmly atmospheric songs is likely to appeal (fans of latter-day Super Furry Animals might easily have found their new favourite band). Whatever the case, those years out of the spotlight have served TPF well: every second of Buffalo is wrought and layered with artisan care, and if ever you were looking for a record to banish the winter, this could be it....full text |
The Phoenix Foundation lyrics
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