The Terminals — Little Things
Having been conceived as a band with major 50s, 60s and garage influences – influences which still came much to the fore on Uncoffined – things took a major turn for the conventional-musically worse with Touch and, especially, Little Things (a turn which would make Ross Humphries quit the band for its flirtations with “noise music”). For the rest of the world, however, this drastic change was quite the blessing, as The Terminals, in their noisy, raucous form, recorded some of the most amazingly brooding New Zealand music ever.
You may start wondering where to locate The Terminals on a musical map – seeing as garage rock and noise music are far apart by any and all definitions. The Terminals, however, seem to occupy middle ground between the two, playing a brand of rock that has too much filth to be garage and too little, well, noise to be noise. When asked what influenced the band in an interview, drummer Peter Stapleton confessed not to consider anything to influence the music explicitly anymore, at least so by the time they recorded Little Things in 1995. The music of John Cale and Lou Reed, however, Stapleton likened The Terminals too – if not the sound, then certain elements at least – which already gives you something of a hint; famously, too, vocalist Stephen Cogle’s son bought a Sonic Youth record and disliked it for sounding too much like The Terminals.
While Little Things is a 1995 album, it sounds late 80s, early 90s in every which way. That is not to that it sound dated – just that it breathes decidedly the spirit of that generation X noisy guitar rock. It has the severe sense of angst – not teen angst, but a more visceral, real kind – and the wavering guitars and an off-kilter, not entirely talented singer that speaks to the heart nonetheless; basically all the ingredients you’d find on an early Sonic Youth record, to name something. In no way it sounds derivative though, and in more than one way it sounds as though it might’ve inspired legions of contemporary bands instead. Insofar as Joy Division and The Cure are usually mentioned as the forefathers of bands like The National, Interpol and Editors, a track like Messianic so much more than Joy Division’s and The Cure’s entire oeuvres seems to lay the groundwork for that distinct brand of modern rock music, music of organs and despair and dark voices and lethargy.
Little Things, ultimately, is a remarkable album in more than way. For one thing, it’s surprisingly, admirably consistent – call it blasphemy, but even Daydream Nation had a stinker or two. On Little Things, however, it’s all highs, all the way. Even the two bonus tracks that wrap up the album are insanely great cuts, brilliant songs even through their atrocious sound quality. Moreover, Little Things, as an album that both sounds inspired and inspirational, seems to resonate clearly both into the past and into the future, following, even if not explicitly, in the footsteps of many great bands, all the while paving the way for many excellent others to follow. Most importantly, however, Little Things is a highly idiosyncratic album, sounding very much like The Terminals and like not much else. There’s a thousand comparisons you could draw, but none would suffice. And that, most of all, is the strength of Little Things.
In the end, Little Things stands as an awe-inspiring document of New Zealand avant-rock at its very finest that cannot be recommended highly enough. If you didn’t manage to catch it first time round, make sure you do it this time. It seems only right that Last Visible Dog gave this beast the re-issue it deserved – history in the re-making.