Bunchy’s Big Score have one foot planted firmly in the storied soil of Ōtepoti and the other kicking gleefully at the future. On their second album ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’, the New Zealand quartet don’t simply pay homage to the city’s celebrated lineage – they take the melodic DNA of the Dunedin Sound, wire it into a fuzzed-up modern nervous system and emerge with something exhilaratingly their own. Recorded with producer Nick Roughan, the album follows acclaimed singles including ‘Oscar Says’, ‘You Are A Camera’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Dance’.
For decades the spectre of Flying Nun Records has loomed over every guitar band to emerge from the lower South Island. It’s an impossible inheritance to ignore, but Bunchy’s Big Score wear it lightly. Rather than chasing nostalgic jangle, ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’ captures the same spirit of youthful invention that made those classic records feel so vital in the first place. Like contemporaries Ringlets, Office Dog and Fazerdaze, they’re helping redefine what modern New Zealand guitar music sounds like—less concerned with preserving a scene than expanding its possibilities.
That restless energy courses through every track. The guitars shimmer before collapsing into sheets of distortion; melodies arrive with deceptive sweetness before lyrics reveal uncertainty, longing and self-interrogation. Bunchy’s Big Score possess an enviable knack for writing hooks that seem almost tossed away, only to find yourself humming them hours later. The choruses never strain for grandeur—they simply arrive, confidently inevitable.
‘Oscar Says’ is the obvious entry point, a glorious rush of jangling guitars, muscular rhythm and impossibly infectious vocal lines that feels destined for repeat plays. ‘You Are A Camera’ pares things back just enough to reveal the emotional intelligence beneath the band’s fuzz-coated exterior, its quietly anxious observations delivered with disarming honesty. Elsewhere, ‘I Don’t Wanna Dance’ transforms social discomfort into something strangely euphoric, while heavier cuts revel in glorious noise without ever sacrificing melody.
The real achievement of ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’, however, lies in its emotional elasticity. One moment the band are charging headlong through noisy indie-pop with reckless abandon; the next they’re pulling everything back to expose something intimate and bruised. Those shifts never feel forced. Instead they mirror the contradictions of early adulthood—the exhilaration, insecurity, romance and occasional absurdity that colour everyday life.
It’s tempting to describe the record through familiar touchstones: echoes of the classic Dunedin Sound, flashes of college rock, bursts of shoegaze haze and indie-pop exuberance. Yet those comparisons only tell part of the story. Bunchy’s Big Score belong to a generation that has absorbed decades of alternative music history without feeling beholden to any of it. The result is an album that feels unmistakably New Zealand while sounding thoroughly contemporary.
In many ways, ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’ occupies the same cultural space that albums by Ringlets, Office Dog and Fazerdaze have recently claimed: records that acknowledge the country’s rich indie heritage while refusing to become museum pieces. They’re proof that the spirit which once made Flying Nun Records such an unlikely global phenomenon is still alive—not because anyone is trying to recreate it, but because musicians continue to value melody, individuality and fearless experimentation above fashion.
Above all else, ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’ is simply enormous fun. Its songs burst with personality, humour and heart, wrapped in arrangements that reward repeated listening. It’s the sound of a band growing rapidly in confidence without losing the scrappy charm that made them so compelling in the first place.
The Dunedin Sound has never really been about a particular guitar tone or recording aesthetic. It’s about making deeply human music from the edges of the world. On ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’, Bunchy’s Big Score prove that tradition is in remarkably safe hands.
‘Wanda’s Bicycle’ is out now and you can get it through the link above and here.
Bunchy’s Big Score have been playing a few gigs – catch them while you can.
Feature Photograph: Ethan Montañer
Artwork by Isabella Simoni
