Blending the Auckland band’s many influences into a warm, good-natured rock album, ‘Grom Warfare’ runs the gamut from sparkly sing-along pop to some menacing, overdriven guitar noise. Beach Pigs is Daniel Kerr on guitar, Billy Robertson on bass, Suren Unka on drums with Dahnu Graham on vocals (though all contribute their voices, along with Loki Smythe, to closing track Heart Breaker), and the group have brought a range of styles together in this debut album.

There’s all the ’60s pop and surf-rock that you’d expect from a band of that name, but also hints of The Pixies, punk and Flying Nun pop – and even some atmospheric post-rock on the cleverly-named Big Peach. It’s to the band’s credit that they manage to combine all their various influences into such a cohesive and singular sound – whether doing screechy guitars or pop vocal harmonies, all songs sound like the same band. Props for this should also no doubt go to Bob Frisbee who recorded and produced the album, and Chris Chetland who mastered it. Despite the largely American influences the album still has an undeniably Kiwi sound to it. Maybe it’s the accents, maybe it’s that it follows in our tradition of rough-edged summery pop – maybe it’s just that I can see myself thrashing this on summer road trips to the Coromandel. Regardless of the reason or season, this is a fun album and I highly recommend it.