Fans of seminal jangle-pop band The Clean were spoiled rotten in 2011 with excellent records from founding members David Kilgour (Left By Soft) and Robert Scott (Ends Run Together). Now there's even more to be thankful for, with the appearance of an album by Robert Scott's other band The Bats; it may be the best of the bunch.
"The Bats are back to remind us how sweet, lovely and connective pop songs can be. Titled Free All The Monsters, the band’s eighth album shows them in top form. Recorded at Seacliff, a former asylum in the grand Victorian style just outside of Dunedin, New Zealand, and masterfully produced by Dale Cotton, it captures some of their strongest songs to date." - Flying Nun
"In their 30 years as a band, The Bats have made only eight full-length records. There are years, even occasional decades, between the band’s statements, gaps that reflect other musical obligations (Robert Scott is in a half-dozen other projects, including The Clean), work, children and family life. Free All The Monsters comes only three years after The Guilty Office, a relatively short span in Bats terms. (It was 10 years between Couchmaster and National Grid.) It sounds very much like The Guilty Office, and, in fact, very much like The Bats have always sounded—a jangle and clatter subdued somehow into melancholy introspection." - Dusted