Review: ‘Just Like Yesterday’ by Springloader

​Back in 1993, New Zealand had a population of a little over 3.5 million. The music charts were dire, but for me, New Zealand music was pretty much at its zenith. It was in front of this backdrop that Christchurch’s Springloader sprung into existence. 

​Central to the Springloader story is its songwriter, Rob Mayes. Mayes has obsessively documented the best bits of the Christchurch music scene from the ‘80s and ‘90s, and more beyond that, via his label Failsafe Records. Is there a New Zealand scene that is better chronicled than Christchurch’s during this period? I doubt it. The guy should seriously be the recipient of a Royal Honour for his services to that city’s music, or at the very least be given a Key to the City. The journey has been long and convoluted, but the release of Springloader’s album ‘Just Like Yesterday’ is a continuation of this documentation, filling in even more of the gaps in the city's musical nooks and crannies. Springloader were short-lived as a live act, but locally important, and their songs are finally getting a proper airing to a wider audience.

I never got to experience Springloader in the flesh, being only aware of them through the song ‘Now I Know’ on the wonderful 1994 Failsafe compilation ‘Good Things’ - that had been the sum total of the bands’ releases to date, but far from the entirety of their efforts. This release has all the sounds and the smells of the New Zealand scene of the ‘90s. But it is certainly not an old and musky smell, or mould infused from sitting at the back of a cupboard for 30-odd years, and neither does it have the scent of the cigarette and beer infused pub carpets of the time. No, sitting here in 2024, this all smells pretty damn nice, thank you very much.

​‘Just Like Yesterday’ is a superbly coherent album. The band started working on these songs 30 years ago, but three of the members reconvened in 2018, and they finally get to be released on the first of November. A lot of the album could be described as shoegaze adjacent. Or, in the words of the band, proto-shoegaze, dreampop, indierock or postrock... Regardless, there are waves and walls and chimes of guitars. The guitars flow and surge, and you can become immersed in the incoming and outgoing of the tides. Or, to use some spring-based analogies, the guitars coil, twist and curl. The sound, according to the press release, is the result of using “non-standard chords and tuning tweaks”. 

​Springloader features Michael Oakley (vocals, guitar), Rob Mayes (guitars, ebow bass), David Toland (drums) and Che Rogers (bass). While Mayes wrote the music, Oakley contributed the words. Something that struck me while listening is that the entire album - every single song - is riddled with first person singular pronouns. This is clearly for the purpose of conveying emotion, and it makes me wonder whether an older and wiser Oakley still sees the world the same inward looking way today as when he wrote these songs back then?

The songs aren’t all loaded up yet, but there are some sneak peeks on Bandcamp already, and a listening party to look forward to on Friday:

Find the album on Bandcamp, here: http://springloader.bandcamp.com

And keep up to date with the album release dates and listening party via their Facebook.
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Ian Duggan