Consumer Guide Album

The Bats: Daddy's Highway [Communion, 1989]
These New Zealanders are wimps if not simps. Robert Scott's reedy if not weedy quaver cries out for Kaye Woodward to chime in, and the one-foot-at-a-time folk-rock pulse can get pretty lame. But their jangly modesty is touching and smart--they understand the formal and historical limitations of their chosen style. And even though only one of their homely metaphors--" . . . there'll be a morning sky/Bringing you some peace tonight"--unites words and music into a pop moment, the atmosphere sustains. B+