The thirty-year wait before the group’s first release should cause a critic to suspect something is amiss; however, Jason McKee, the front man of the Melbourne group Reetoxa, goes against this trend by putting out his EP “Double A Side 2 (Akaroa / Erica And The Stars)”.

The first song on EP, “Akaroa”, originated from a dream that Reetoxa had during a particularly hard time and wasn’t finished until many years later in the actual New Zealand town after which it is named. The lyricism has a real effect, although it doesn’t make that effect obvious.

Budapest, Orchestra, Dream

The second song, ‘Erica And The Stars’, lowers the energy and channels it into a more melancholy pop rock style, the chorus in particular being the one that I find myself listening to over and over again; the sentiment is fully expressed thanks to the orchestral accompaniment (which was recorded in Budapest) so that it doesn’t just stay on the surface.

The recordings were made some of the time at The Avenue in Cheltenham, Victoria; this is a short release but one which has the impact of a much larger one.