Beat by Chris Knox

"Coming after the relative indulgences of his last solo album, Yes!!, and the last Tall Dwarfs' effort, Beat is a direct, cohesive and thankfully less self-conscious affair. Throughout it's highly pop-infectious on the fuzzy likes of the lyrically sweet and sour What Do With Love?, the yelping Denial Song, and the bubblegum electropop of opener It's Love.

But there's many an affecting moment here, too. Like the sweetly devotional My Only Friend (a relative of his earlier love song Not Given Lightly), the mortality-contemplating This Mortal Coil and Becoming Something Other, a lyrically disarming dirge which addresses the recent passing of his father.

Elsewhere Knox offers the worryingly titled throwaway I Wanna Look Like Darcy Clay, gets in some brass backing on The Hell Of It and the Lust For Life-grooved Ghost.

Widening musical horizons show in the last of the 13 tracks, Laughter, a song of limpid melody showing a hitherto undetected influence on this first-generation Kiwi punk-rocker - Bach.

As its cover shows, Beat is an album with heart. Which makes it quite the best thing Knox has done in ages."

4/5 Stars - Russell Baillie - NZ Herald