THE PET ROCKS, RELEASED AGAIN AT LAST (2023): Time has come today?

For some artists, more interesting than their album is the candid interview. And for others their backstory takes on such legendary proportions that the album is a disappointment.

Consider then the problem faced by Auckland band Pet Rocks from the late Nineties who have a great backstory with a revolving door of drummers, a Big Day Out appearance in '96 described as “pants optional”, being favourites of the student radio crowd but not reaching much further, and in terms of their sound running counter to the then-current trends.

Then there's the big one, the debut album PR Nightmare (sounds right) which never appeared.

Until 1998 when it largely went unnoticed.

Pet Rocks were a band of fascinating, interlocking talents: keyboard player Dominic Blaazer is more familiar from subsequent bands Smoothy, appearing with SJD and Greg Fleming, a fine solo album The Lights of Te Atatu and most recently in The Loving Arms.

Bassist Steven Shaw and drummer Kim Martinengo were also in Smoothy, singer Nick Kreisler moved to Sydney after the band broke up in the early 2000s where he recorded an album under the Pet Rocks name in 2008 (not PR Nightmare which was from their first incarnation).

Co-founder of the original Pet Rocks with Kreisler was guitarist Simon Sampson who subsequently formed Delta with one of the Pet Rocks' drummers Mark Pollard.

The other drummer – one of three who appear on PR Nightmare – was Kurt Ensor, also of Smoothy when he replaced Martinengo.

So, with that convoluted backstory, can their debut and sole album PR Nightmare – recorded in a number of locations in Auckland, including the bFM studio – stack up now in a remastered 25^th anniversary edition, years after they signed off on it and then signed out?

Unquestionably.

Remembering this was recorded when glam metal hair bands were morphing into harder grunge, the first wave of Flying Nun bands like the Verlaines, the Chills and the Clean were losing traction and guitar bands like Stellar*, Pluto, Breathe, Zed and others were getting rock radio play.

The Pet Rocks' PR Nightmare sound like none of that, but with small influences from all. And more interesting places.

The witty and cynical Blunter Classics is like a crafted collision between Headless Chickens, glam-era Bowie and hard rock; the measured Fade In/Fade Out has a smidgen of the Clean and David Kilgour's solo album Here Come the Cars; there's the melodic attitude of the early Saints and the Replacements' Paul Westerberg (the openers Don't Get Cute and Going Places, and Cocktails for Daddy), the poetic moodiness and ambition of Tom Verlaine (Shroud of Turin), hints of solo Iggy Pop and alt.rock wrapped up in mainstream rock (Dog of a Nation).

This was a band which could not only play but wanted to stretch themselves – they don't shy from a guitar solo – and post-modern rock was the term applied. It kind of fits.

Remarkably for an album with such disparate recording sessions, it sounds coherent and sharp: hats off to Dean Godward who engineered, mixed and mastered these 10 tracks.

And what a great album cover!

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here

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