WAIKATO TIMES
5 stars
There is always the essence of the spirit of the New Zealander in the reflective songs of Barry Saunders . Whether via his ever popular domestic country band The Warratahs or on his solo albums including Weatherman, Magnetic South and particularly Red Morning, Saunders’ best tales are borne of New Zealand.
And combined with encompassing the landscape of the country in his troubadour-inspired lyrical structures, the focus is on deliveries from the heart. And what sets the songs alive is Saunders’ unique rhythmic swagger. One only has to listen to the acoustic intro to opener Here Comes Tomorrow and the anticipation for Saunders to begin singing becomes all the more satisfying. And while that song cries out loud to be a single, others including Start Up Again, the starkly optimistic Still No Word From You and the highly emotive To Roberta all reveal the wonderful appeal of this highly focused minstrel.
With guitarist David Long (also importantly in the production seat) alongside violinist Nik Brown and Steve Gallagher on Hammond organ the warm, upfront feel of the songs connects in emotional fashion. From the country take on The Phoenix Foundations Going Fishing, the stirring instrumental Dark Star to the hope of togetherness for all New Zealanders on Walking New Year, Barry Saunders’ Zodiac is a sign that heralds his best album to date.
•••••
STEVE SCOTT
THE DOMINION POST
4 stars
Singer-songwriter Barry Saunders is still best known for his work with The Warratahs, but he has managed to show growth with every solo album. Zodiac trumps Red Morning, which was an improvement on The Weatherman and Magnetic South and that slow-loping acoustic strum is the underpinning characteristic; that and the Don Gibson-esque pure country croon. Saunders manages to encapsulate the land in his writing; that, and the very ethos of being Kiwi - and with none of the gimmickry or irony of Don McGlashan and Chris Knox. There is always the earnest feel of authenticity in a Saunders recording; the sound of a man bonded to the land, imbibed by the spirit of his fellow countrymen and women. In and around the sterling original creations that make up Zodiac is a version of The Phoenix Foundation's Going Fishing; it just might be the best cover of 2008 and, in keeping with the honesty that has allowed Saunders to craft his look, sound and feel, this is no tongue-in-cheek bid to be cool, it is simply a great interpretation of a fine song.
THE DOMINION POST / Simon Sweetman - 12 December 2008
OTAGO DAILY TIMES
Four stars
"When Warratahs frontman Barry Saunders takes The Phoenix Foundation's Going Fishing and reshapes it as a country ballad, he does so with the quiet confidence of a man who can trust his instincts.
And despite the ever-present lyrical pointers to a fragile ego and a questioning mind, his place as an artist of substance is only enhanced by Zodiac - yet another strong solo album.
Saunders has a knack for avoiding the mawkish sentimentality that plagues the genre, lending his songs an authentic personal quality.
These are diary entries set to familiar and well-played country backings."
For those who like: Paul Kelly
OTAGO DAILY TIMES / Jeff Harford - December 08
Barry Saunders - Zodiac
Saturday November 29, 2008
Rating: * * * *
Saunders' previous solo albums outside the Warratahs have always seemed to promise more than they deliver, but on this album of broad emotional reach and highly focused writing he delivers his best yet.
His poetic lyrics are allusive and just specific enough to nail down some hard images ("down at the Kingdom Hall"), he sings with great strength and sensitivity, and the snappy band (which includes guitarist David Long, Nick Brown on violin and backing vocalists Caroline Easther, Sam Scott and others) has real bite to it.
In a couple of place he invites favourable songwriting comparisons with Paul Kelly (the standout is the taut and bitter To Roberta) but he also brings a grounded country flavour (Still No Word From You), and offers up the widescreen landscape of the instrumental Dark Star as the album's centrepiece.
He reaches to the Phoenix Foundation for a back-porch remake of their Going Fishing which slips in seamlessly here.
Saunders has always been a poet of the road (Fade, Start Up Again) and the album is very much born of this country, no more so than the final song Walking New Year where he conjures up the dawn of another year against the backdrop of the old at Waitangi and the suggestion of a promise there.
Something special.
NZ HERALD / Graham Reid - November 2008
Signs of the Times - Barry Saunders continues his musical journey.
“As Barry Saunders tells it, he was weeding a row of Swedes on a Canterbury farm when his father turned and asked him, “Why don’t you forget about everything and just follow the music?” for a teenager in the late 60s, he remembers, “it was like someone had opened a door in a brick wall”. Saunders stepped through and has been following the music ever since.
His new album, Zodiac, looks both back and forward on the journey of one of our most travelled troubadours.
In To Roberta, an old picture “from a beach in Spain” takes him back to a time when “we were such pretty people”. Yet he confronts the passage of time in the song’s concluding lines: “If you should see Roberta/Tell her this from me/I feel a long time gone.”
And in “Here Comes Tomorrow”, he looks ahead, singing: “I put some coins on the table/and hope to pay back anything I borrowed/singing inside, here comes tomorrow.”
If the underlying theme is restlessness and the inability to posses the past, Saunders has put his music where his mouth is. On Zodiac, he tries new things, like the piano he plays on the impressionistic Walking New Year, a largely instrumental piece in which the few words are not sung so much as intoned, like a chant or prayer.
He has recorded these latest songs with a bunch of mostly younger musicians he has not worked with before, including members of current Wellington bands Cassette and the Phoenix Foundation. They bring an instrumental weight none of his previous solo albums have had, without interfering with his plain, song centred approach.
But the success of this meeting between the country stalwart and the alt-rock fraternity is best encapsulated in a terrific cover of the Phoenix Foundation’s Going Fishing, which blends to Saunders’ style while retaining all the ambiguous beauty of the original.”
NZ LISTENER / Nick Bollinger – November 2008
"By my count this is Saunders' fifth solo album, and is by far the strongest from the Warratah frontman.
He reaches to the Phoenix Foundation for a downhome(ly) remake of their Going Fishing and his own lyrics are allusive, just specific enough to nail down some hard images ("down at the Kingdom Hall") and the snappy band (which includes guitarist David Long, Nick Brown on violin and backing vocalists Caroline Easther, Sam Scott and others) has real bite to it.
In a couple of place he invites favourable songwriting comparisons with Paul Kelly (the gripping and bitter To Roberta) but he also brings a grounded country flavour (Still No Word From You), and offers up the widescreen landscape of the instrumental Dark Star as the album's centrepiece.
Saunders is also a poet of the road like Joe Ely (Fade, Start Up Again) but this album is very much born of this country, no more so than the final song Walking New Year where he conjures up the dawn of another year against the backdrop of the old, and perhaps the promise of the Treaty to heal this land.
Terrific album."
GRAHAM REID / November 08
www.elsewhere.co.nz
"This is at least the fifth solo album from The Warratahs’ main man and as usual Saunders’ keen eye for the sharp details of low-key New Zealand is part of his lyrical focus – singing about the land and the people as he always has. There’s that Don Gibson sound of real, pure country in his voice and the laconic acoustic guitar strum. But it’s not all dreary and lonesome; Saunders finds musical company with the Phoenix Foundation, even covering their song “Going Fishing”. It transcends any idea of being a novelty cover. And, as always, the original material stands up as among our finest."
NORTH & SOUTH / December 2008
5 stars
There is always the essence of the spirit of the New Zealander in the reflective songs of Barry Saunders . Whether via his ever popular domestic country band The Warratahs or on his solo albums including Weatherman, Magnetic South and particularly Red Morning, Saunders’ best tales are borne of New Zealand.
And combined with encompassing the landscape of the country in his troubadour-inspired lyrical structures, the focus is on deliveries from the heart. And what sets the songs alive is Saunders’ unique rhythmic swagger. One only has to listen to the acoustic intro to opener Here Comes Tomorrow and the anticipation for Saunders to begin singing becomes all the more satisfying. And while that song cries out loud to be a single, others including Start Up Again, the starkly optimistic Still No Word From You and the highly emotive To Roberta all reveal the wonderful appeal of this highly focused minstrel.
With guitarist David Long (also importantly in the production seat) alongside violinist Nik Brown and Steve Gallagher on Hammond organ the warm, upfront feel of the songs connects in emotional fashion. From the country take on The Phoenix Foundations Going Fishing, the stirring instrumental Dark Star to the hope of togetherness for all New Zealanders on Walking New Year, Barry Saunders’ Zodiac is a sign that heralds his best album to date.
•••••
STEVE SCOTT
THE DOMINION POST
4 stars
Singer-songwriter Barry Saunders is still best known for his work with The Warratahs, but he has managed to show growth with every solo album. Zodiac trumps Red Morning, which was an improvement on The Weatherman and Magnetic South and that slow-loping acoustic strum is the underpinning characteristic; that and the Don Gibson-esque pure country croon. Saunders manages to encapsulate the land in his writing; that, and the very ethos of being Kiwi - and with none of the gimmickry or irony of Don McGlashan and Chris Knox. There is always the earnest feel of authenticity in a Saunders recording; the sound of a man bonded to the land, imbibed by the spirit of his fellow countrymen and women. In and around the sterling original creations that make up Zodiac is a version of The Phoenix Foundation's Going Fishing; it just might be the best cover of 2008 and, in keeping with the honesty that has allowed Saunders to craft his look, sound and feel, this is no tongue-in-cheek bid to be cool, it is simply a great interpretation of a fine song.
THE DOMINION POST / Simon Sweetman - 12 December 2008
OTAGO DAILY TIMES
Four stars
"When Warratahs frontman Barry Saunders takes The Phoenix Foundation's Going Fishing and reshapes it as a country ballad, he does so with the quiet confidence of a man who can trust his instincts.
And despite the ever-present lyrical pointers to a fragile ego and a questioning mind, his place as an artist of substance is only enhanced by Zodiac - yet another strong solo album.
Saunders has a knack for avoiding the mawkish sentimentality that plagues the genre, lending his songs an authentic personal quality.
These are diary entries set to familiar and well-played country backings."
For those who like: Paul Kelly
OTAGO DAILY TIMES / Jeff Harford - December 08
Barry Saunders - Zodiac
Saturday November 29, 2008
Rating: * * * *
Saunders' previous solo albums outside the Warratahs have always seemed to promise more than they deliver, but on this album of broad emotional reach and highly focused writing he delivers his best yet.
His poetic lyrics are allusive and just specific enough to nail down some hard images ("down at the Kingdom Hall"), he sings with great strength and sensitivity, and the snappy band (which includes guitarist David Long, Nick Brown on violin and backing vocalists Caroline Easther, Sam Scott and others) has real bite to it.
In a couple of place he invites favourable songwriting comparisons with Paul Kelly (the standout is the taut and bitter To Roberta) but he also brings a grounded country flavour (Still No Word From You), and offers up the widescreen landscape of the instrumental Dark Star as the album's centrepiece.
He reaches to the Phoenix Foundation for a back-porch remake of their Going Fishing which slips in seamlessly here.
Saunders has always been a poet of the road (Fade, Start Up Again) and the album is very much born of this country, no more so than the final song Walking New Year where he conjures up the dawn of another year against the backdrop of the old at Waitangi and the suggestion of a promise there.
Something special.
NZ HERALD / Graham Reid - November 2008
Signs of the Times - Barry Saunders continues his musical journey.
“As Barry Saunders tells it, he was weeding a row of Swedes on a Canterbury farm when his father turned and asked him, “Why don’t you forget about everything and just follow the music?” for a teenager in the late 60s, he remembers, “it was like someone had opened a door in a brick wall”. Saunders stepped through and has been following the music ever since.
His new album, Zodiac, looks both back and forward on the journey of one of our most travelled troubadours.
In To Roberta, an old picture “from a beach in Spain” takes him back to a time when “we were such pretty people”. Yet he confronts the passage of time in the song’s concluding lines: “If you should see Roberta/Tell her this from me/I feel a long time gone.”
And in “Here Comes Tomorrow”, he looks ahead, singing: “I put some coins on the table/and hope to pay back anything I borrowed/singing inside, here comes tomorrow.”
If the underlying theme is restlessness and the inability to posses the past, Saunders has put his music where his mouth is. On Zodiac, he tries new things, like the piano he plays on the impressionistic Walking New Year, a largely instrumental piece in which the few words are not sung so much as intoned, like a chant or prayer.
He has recorded these latest songs with a bunch of mostly younger musicians he has not worked with before, including members of current Wellington bands Cassette and the Phoenix Foundation. They bring an instrumental weight none of his previous solo albums have had, without interfering with his plain, song centred approach.
But the success of this meeting between the country stalwart and the alt-rock fraternity is best encapsulated in a terrific cover of the Phoenix Foundation’s Going Fishing, which blends to Saunders’ style while retaining all the ambiguous beauty of the original.”
NZ LISTENER / Nick Bollinger – November 2008
"By my count this is Saunders' fifth solo album, and is by far the strongest from the Warratah frontman.
He reaches to the Phoenix Foundation for a downhome(ly) remake of their Going Fishing and his own lyrics are allusive, just specific enough to nail down some hard images ("down at the Kingdom Hall") and the snappy band (which includes guitarist David Long, Nick Brown on violin and backing vocalists Caroline Easther, Sam Scott and others) has real bite to it.
In a couple of place he invites favourable songwriting comparisons with Paul Kelly (the gripping and bitter To Roberta) but he also brings a grounded country flavour (Still No Word From You), and offers up the widescreen landscape of the instrumental Dark Star as the album's centrepiece.
Saunders is also a poet of the road like Joe Ely (Fade, Start Up Again) but this album is very much born of this country, no more so than the final song Walking New Year where he conjures up the dawn of another year against the backdrop of the old, and perhaps the promise of the Treaty to heal this land.
Terrific album."
GRAHAM REID / November 08
www.elsewhere.co.nz
"This is at least the fifth solo album from The Warratahs’ main man and as usual Saunders’ keen eye for the sharp details of low-key New Zealand is part of his lyrical focus – singing about the land and the people as he always has. There’s that Don Gibson sound of real, pure country in his voice and the laconic acoustic guitar strum. But it’s not all dreary and lonesome; Saunders finds musical company with the Phoenix Foundation, even covering their song “Going Fishing”. It transcends any idea of being a novelty cover. And, as always, the original material stands up as among our finest."
NORTH & SOUTH / December 2008