7"
See also - The Strange Girls - Truly & Lyric
Soft Abuse are back in the game with these two latest 7s, one new, the other from further back in time, that further help survey NZ's seemingly unmappable underground. What Kind of Human Have I Become is the newest outlet for Matt Plunkett of Cuticles/The Trendees, though one listen makes that clear enough without any attendant explication - the signature Plunkett ramshackle charm is in full effect here. What is different, and perhaps explains the name change, is the presence of Stefan Neville and Oksun Ox's Ben Holmes, who add a little psychedelic glee to the usual unusual garage rock surrealism. Killer and kommitted as ever. Dialing the clock back a couple of decades, we've these two previously unreleased Strange Girls tracks, pulled from an audience recording in 2002. The quality is admittedly low grade, though Strange Girls listeners will know that to be par for the course by now. What also remains is band's uniquely ecstatic melancholy, the leaden pall of the guitars contrasted with Clayton Noone's mournful but affecting vocal, the words of which are hard to discern, but the sense of emotional drama unmistakeable. Apparently there's more Strange Girls recordings still waiting to see the light of day. On the strength of these two tracks, someone needs to hurry along and make that a reality.
