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The Bats - By Night EP Review

23 May 2013 // A review by tonymcdonald

Already owning two of The Bats albums Fear of God and At The National Grid I was excited to be able to review their latest EP By Night. The Bats fans will remember this as being their first EP released on vinyl in 1984, so it's not exactly a "new" release.

Well, it has now been reproduced and sounds glorious. Having said that, I’m sure it did the first time around, and for fans it may be hard to spot the difference.

The first track Go Wild is my favourite track on this EP. The songs range from 2:41 to 3:25 (roughly, ha), and by the time you reach the end of the EP with United Airways, you will want to throw it on again.

If you haven’t heard of The Bats, firstly "Why not?", and secondly please and go and buy this EP. They have a 1960’s feel to the music mixed with classic 1980’s Stone Roses appeal, especially in the song By Night.

It’s great seeing bands stand the test of time, and this Christchurch band have done NZ proud, still performing today after being together with the same line-up for more than 20 years.

 

About The Bats

Early in the 1980's, Robert Scott was playing with The Clean and sharing a flat in Christchurch with Kaye Woodward. Robert taught Kaye some of his songs and also played once or twice with Paul Kean (ex Toy Love bassist) in Thanks To Llamas.

The Bats have long been Flying Nun’s quiet achievers. They’ve toured America five times, guested with Radiohead and the Buzzcocks, had one of their songs on the soundtrack of a Kiera Knightly movie, charted in France, been on the cover of Billboard magazine and landed an NME Single of the Week (for Made Up In Blue).

The 3 played together a couple of times at parties as The Percy Taiwan Band until they got together with Malcolm Grant (The Bilders) on drums. With this line-up they decided on the name The Bats and played their first gig at the Empire in Dunedin on New Years' Eve 1982.

Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for The Bats

Releases

Foothills
Year: 2020
Type: Album
The Deep Set
Year: 2017
Type: Album
By Night
Year: 2013
Type: EP
Free All The Monsters
Year: 2011
Type: Album
Don't You Rise
Year: 2009
Type: EP
The Guilty Office
Year: 2008
Type: Album
The Bats At National Grid
Year: 2005
Type: Album
1000's Of Tiny Luminous Spheres
Year: 2000
Type: Album
Couchmaster
Year: 1995
Type: Album
Spill The Beans
Year: 1994
Type: EP
Law Of Things
Year: 1994
Type: Album
Silverbeet
Year: 1993
Type: Album
Fear Of God
Year: 1992
Type: Album
Daddy's Highway
Year: 1987
Type: Album

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