The Terminals are the best rock band New Zealand has ever produced.Period. I know there’s heavy competition, but believe it. No group haslasted over three decades and maintained intensity, structure and moodbetter than the core team of Steven Cogle and Peter Stapleton. Cogle’svoice is a quavering incantation of deep spell-casting, throwing moredirt onto the already gritty guitar squalls. Stapleton’s rhythmsection propels songs through lightning charges of tempo and energy.Age has only embedded The Terminals’ mastery to deeper sonic realms.The ten years between their last album, Last Days of the Sun, and therelease of Antiseptic, whip by in a flash when you play these recordsnext to each other. The Terminals never disappoint, they never relent.Antiseptic does mark some changes, however. Longtime guitarist BrianCrook now lives in the California desert, so Nicole Moffat hasreplaced him, providing violin and vocals. Mick El Borado thickens theatmosphere with his improvisational keyboard playing. A group that has stayed together so long knows instinctively where a song can go, although it is often the maverick pieces – ones that at first don’tseem to belong -- that end up on the records. Their work together hasbecome only more sagacious, and The Terminals don’t waste an intendedor improvised note. Antiseptic is a peerless rock album, unless youcan think of another group who’ve stayed as heavy, as broke, andconsistent for this long.
