The Giants Lawn

Wurld Series are back with a new LP of curly rock miniatures and overgrown roadside curios. The Giant’s Lawn stretches the band’s reach, embracing new forms and figures, living corridors and side-quests. Where past worx borrowed from the literate heart of American indie, here, Luke Towart & Co. investigate earthen psychedelia, off-grid community folk, and highly bookish, antipodean snock.

There’s always been a fantastical bent to Wurld Series’ unspooling jaunts – 2021’s What’s G­rowing threw a little Canterbury scene in with the Christchurch sound – but The Giant’s Lawn goes deeper down the rabbit warren; a boy named frog dreams of escape, established trees are recognised for their contributions to humanity… “Rearing Wesley” marries schoolboy imagery with golden flushes of Richard Thompson inspired fretwork. “A Private Life” plays like a field recording of the morning after the carnival – cats yeowl, empty tents billow, gaudy excess sours in the clear light.

British psych-folk lends gentle, omnipresent guidance throughout, but early influences still hit; “Resplendent Fortress”, “Lord of Shelves” and “Illustrious Plates” bounce and buckle like Flying Nun faves 3D’s; compact vehicles for Towart’s Rena­issance-era flash broadcasts. So it’s not that Wurld Series have turfed the wooly tube-fuzz of the sonic South, they’ve simply dragged their amplifiers from the pavement to the creek bed, where the air’s lighter and there’s room to spread out.

• Matt Hellreigel