Review: Carefully observed truths and aural loveliness abound in new Fazed On A Pony album

In the 12 years since his first single, the music of Peter McCall has gradually winnowed from ragged indie rock into carefully arranged alt-country. Such is the passage of time and the effect it has on many of us; rough edges sanded away and replaced by smoother surfaces.

Working as Fazed on a Pony, McCall is careful to replace all that youthful bluster with carefully-observed truths. Another metaphor springs to mind: the waves on his second full-length swan may be gentler, but its waters run deep.

The opening lines make this change of perspective clear. “Used to feel like floating far away/ now I stay here”, sings McCall, summing up a type of maturity in just two lines.

He told Under the Radar the track – ‘The Perfect Swan’ – nearly didn’t make the cut, thinking its opening riff sounded like “a slowed-down Blink 182”. I can hear what he means, but it’s a beautiful song, and perfect album-opener, gathering counter-melodies as it goes.

On swan McCall perfects a certain type of amiability that emerged on his previous record it’ll all work out. At times it feels like he’s pulled you aside for a chat, firm but friendly, and always with your best interests at heart.

The triple-hit of ‘Flashes’, ‘Wrong Party’, and ‘Wait Forever’ all fall into this amicable bracket, despite a variety of approaches stretching from angular riffs, to jangle, to propulsive acoustic shimmer.

The last album came together in Dunedin, with McCall backed by some of the city’s indie luminaries, but the lineup is different here, including Rassani Tolovaa from Office Dog and Hamish Morgan of Marlin’s Dreaming. Carrying over is De Stevens, credited as producer on iawo, and mixer on Swan, and bringing with him a guarantee of aural loveliness.

Things get more poignant in Swan’s midsection, with ‘Time to Turn’ featuring ominous lines about “darkest parts in a frame” being “admired in a dark spire”, before a chorus advocates turning things around. Next ‘Heart Goes Blank’ introduces fiddle and vocal harmonies from Flora Knight, resulting in the most country-inflected and melancholy tune here.

Fazed on a Pony’s main strength might be the way McCall invests his work with honesty, not just in lyrics that are simultaneously unfiltered and poetic, but the way he delivers them, conversational and candid.

This culminates in album-closer ‘Anything else’, in which he fires off reams of choice lines like “the last thing I deserve’s always the first thing on my mind” and “when I hit the curb in the carpark I felt a kind of sick relief”, over some of his most open-armed chords.

His voice becomes submerged in guitar fireworks, then reappears for a final thought: “you can just keep trying, and no one needs to know why”. It’s a reassuring end to a comfortable, confident collection.