Go Stop Go: Go Stop Go (Luca Discs)

Elsewhere has always had a soft spot for decent pop music of all persuasions, whether it be uplifting power pop, jangly guitars, affecting heartbreak/bedroom mope Pop Frenzy stuff or . . .

The thing about disposable pop music is that it can be hard to shake off. So, not so disposable after all.

Go Stop Go from Auckland deliver various kinds of pop from the driving single/opener If You Want It through rather over emotional soulful ballads Home ("lay me down here in green pastures . . . everything will be made new now I'm home") which sounds a bit too Climie Fisher, and Love Don't Fail Me.

Go Stop Go are an unexpected duo: Matt Ruys was once Matty J, a much maligned white guy singing soulful r'n'b pop out of South Auckland (and fine producer too), and Jared Wrennall was in the Westie alt.rock/ragged rock outfit Steriogram.

Aside from the opener however, too much of this errs to the emotionalism of Ruys' ballads or quivering stuff like This Bed ("you made this bed but it's still your choice whether you lie in it") which sound like those soppy and obvious Michael Jackson sentiments designed to appeal to uncertain teenagers.

When they let themselves go a bit -- the wah-wah driven The Greatest -- this lifts itself out of the morass of sentiment and sentimentality. But all too soon we are delivered back there.

Good pop single in If You Want It, but much of the rest here is less uninhibited pop than rather calculated lyrics which sometimes aren't married to much in the way of what old fashioned people like me call "a decent tune". (The plodding Stripes, Space and Wash Away)

Part of me thinks Ruys as a lyric writer -- with a clear quasi or overtly religious bent -- takes himself far too seriously far too often. Pity.