(2020) Mild Orange - Mild Orange


Review:
The appeal of Kiwi four-piece Mild Orange is indicated rather clearly by their name. The Dunedin band’s specific brand of breezy bedroom pop plays just a few shades mellower than their bright primary color would suggest. Formed in 2016 by lifelong friends Josh Mehrtens (vocals, guitar) and Josh Reid (guitar), they made a rapid ascent on the streaming platforms with their self-recorded 2018 debut, Foreplay, and its breakout single, “Some Feeling,” whose chill guitar grooves and spoken word sections earned millions of plays. While they’ve garnered a significant following in New Zealand, they now set their sights on the rest of the globe with this eponymous sophomore set. Produced, recorded, and mixed once again by frontman Mehrtens, Mild Orange’s formula remains relatively unchanged, relying on a mix of glassy reverberating guitar tones, introspective lyrics, and pleasantly melodic jangle pop. Some cuts stand out more than others, especially subtle rousers like “First Taste” and the excellent “Grin,” though the bulk of the LP’s 13 tracks take their time to build from sun-glinted wavelets into bigger whitecaps. Hints of the band’s regional roots are apparent here and there, reminding listeners that Mild Orange hail from the same city as Kiwi pop standard-bearers Flying Nun Records. Likewise, the band make occasional stabs at more strident rock with songs like “Fool’s Love,” a track that smacks of classic Oceania rock of the 1980s. Throughout the set, there is plenty of supple and smart guitar interplay between Reid and Merhtens with ample support from the rhythm battery of bassist Tom Kelk and drummer Jack Ferguson. Even if it suffers from a sense of sameness by its midpoint, Mild Orange is a well-made follow-up with enough highlights to see it through.





Tracklist:



Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, indie-pop
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits