Win a copy of STREET CHANT Means on Vinyl!

Just head over to our ARCH HILL FACEBOOK page or TWITTER and tell us...

..."What's the Means-est thing you've ever done?"

Street Chant will decide the winner on Monday 30th of August

Vinyl limited to 200 numbered copies.

And if you'd rather do it the old fashioned way and BUY a copy head to the Arch Hill store

“Careening, tuneful and bolshie as all hell. The debut they, and we, deserve” 4/5 Stars – Joe Nunweek - Real Groove

“’ Means’ displays a refreshing absence of the usual tiresome indie-pop pussyfooting…the band’s free noise enthusiasms are marshalled by a strong pop sensibility throughout.” 4/5 Stars – Grant Smithies – Sunday Star Times

“In a year littered with releases from great New Zealand bands, it kinda looks like Auckland three-piece Street Chant topped them all.” James Beavis - Salient

After neglecting NZ for a couple of years while touring UK/Europe and Australia (twice!),The Bats are very pleased to announce their NZ SPRING TOUR. Good news is the composer and performer of the string arrangements on The Guilty Office, Alan Starrett, will join the band on electric viola. The Bats will play songs from their USA Slumberland Don't You Rise 7" EP, a selection from their extensive recorded career AND new material for a new album which will be aired for the first time in NZ.

The Bats NZ September Spring Tour dates
10th - Cook:Dunedin with Pine and Death By Silo (features Chris Matthews, Headless Chickens, Children's Hour). $15 presales - $20 door.

17th - San Fran Bath House: Wellington with Luc Arnault (Ladybird) - $17
presales, $20 on door

18th - Kings Arms: Auckland with Polaroid (features Dominic from
3ds/Snapper/Bird Nest Roys) $17 presales, $20 on door

Tickets on sale through www.undertheradar.co.nz

STREET CHANT CD Digi and VINYL Pre-orders available NOW from the Arch Hill website!

CD digi pre-orders of the album will be sent out on Thursday 19th of August

Vinyl pre-orders will be sent out on Wednesday 25th of August. Vinyl also comes with album download card!

Street Chant will also be playing a couple of release shows to celebrate the release of their album - and at these shows there will be special deals on CD and Vinyl.

STREET CHANT ALBUM RELEASE SHOWS with Special Guests

• Friday 27th of August - Garrett Street, Wellington with Brains and Teen Hygine

• Saturday 28th of August - Margaritas - 18 Elliot Street - Auckland

Ticket Pre-sales available from www.undertheradar.co.nz - Including SPECIAL DEAL for ticket AND Vinyl or ticket and CD

LISTEN to "Means" on the Arch Hill Website

Pre-order STREET CHANT "Means" on CD or Vinyl

Street Chant FACEBOOK

We're very pleased to announce that Surf City will be releasing their Album in New Zealand on 20th of September. Pre-orders, streaming versions and live shows will be announced shortly.

Surf City recently signed a deal for Europe and the US with label Fire Records - home of reissues of Spaceman 3, Teenage Fanclub, Neutral Milk Hotel and others.The labum will be out in those parts of the world in November this year.

Those lucky Australians are actually getting the album a little earlier than the rest of us - on 4th of September and they will also get to see the band on tour as well

The Sunday Star Times - By Grant Smithies - published 8th August 2010

Never underestimate the power of boredom as a creative catalyst. Half the songs on the splendid new debut album by Auckland trio Street Chant arose from having bugger all better to do. “I was living in this really horrible flat in Don Croot Street in Morningside” says singer/ guitarist Emily Litter. “You know- the area that has all the murders. I had no internet or email, an old TV that only got one channel, and a crappy CD player with only two CDs, so I got really bored and wrote some songs. I just sort of ripped off The Clean and made it a bit more punk-y. I just thought they were really generic, and I had no idea we’d get as far as we have.”

Previously, Litter was in an infamous noise band called Cock Destroyer. “Half the members would leave after every gig, and we really rubbed some people up the wrong way. We played at Auckland Uni one time and this guy walked around with a petition so that we could never play there again.”

In late 2007, Litter formed Mean Street with her Friday night binge drinking buddy Billie Rogers on bass. After the addition of former DHDFDs’ drummer Alex Brown and a name change, they released the breathlessly brilliant pop-punk single, “Scream Walk”, which somehow found its way to the ears of Jack White of the White Stripes. Duly impressed, he booked Street Chant to play support for his other band The Dead Weather on their recent tour of Australian and New Zealand. Other tours followed with The Datsuns and The 3Ds, and now, after a long wait, their debut album “Means” is finally upon us.

“We tried to write classic pop songs, then perform them in an interesting aggressive way, plus there’s a five minute instrumental that’s like us entering our art-rock phase. They’re angsty little passive-aggressive songs about social situations, I guess. People will probably call it a punk record, but I hope not, because punk these days often means little girls walking around with T-shirts that say ‘Punk’ on them that they bought from Glassons. Really, we’re a heavy guitar pop band.”

Heavy, perhaps. Direct, certainly. “Means” displays a refreshing absence of the usual tiresome indie-pop pussyfooting, with eleven pert and punchy little songs that get straight to the point: a few ringing guitar chords, some scattershot drum rolls, a snotty lyric and a burst of galloping bass and you’re already hitting the chorus. Two minutes later, it’s on to the next one.

“Blister” and “Your Philosophy” are such a perfectly-judged collisions of mania and melody, you could be listening to the Buzzcocks, but fast and loud are not this band’s only setting; “Stoned Again” slows down and stretches out into an unusually insightful song about young people taking drugs to escape suburban boredom. Elsewhere the warm waves of guitar distortion recall Dinosaur Jnr., The Pixies and Sonic Youth, but the band’s free noise enthusiasms are marshalled by a strong pop sensibility throughout. “That probably comes from me” offers Litter. “Alex likes lots of weird noise music and Billie grew up obsessed with The Byrds and Gram Parsons, but I like a lot of mainstream Top 40 things like Lady Gaga and Paramour and Taylor Swift. There’s something about modern over-produced pop records that sounds oddly cool to me. When we were mixing our album, I borrowed a pair of really good headphones and listened to Justin Beiber, and it sounded amazing! I felt like teenagers must have felt in the 70’s when they would smoke weed and listen to Dark Side Of The Moon.”

Whatever its influences, this album delivers on the promise of Street Chant’s early singles. The best songs are notable for their energy, brevity, melody and wit, and even the less successful longer songs show a young band prepared to take risks with more complex arrangements. “I worry because this album has taken so long to make and people’s expectations have been raised so high. But it’s good, I reckon. Some musicians will go ‘nah, I suck’ just to seem cool, but I love how we sound together. We believe in ourselves. We have to – otherwise we’d practice  more.”

Street Chant - Means - 4/5 Stars - Album out 23rd of September

Make sure you go along and see the Sam Hunt movie called Sam Hunt: Purple Balloon.

The music is by David Kilgour and the film also features some footage of the shows they did after the Falling Debris album

The film is showing at the following

25th July - Auckland - Sky City

29th July - Wellington - Paranount

4th of August - Dunedin - Rialto