Something for Kate: Echolalia
By Russell Baillie
The New Zealand Herald, March 2 2002

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Something For Kate are a Melbourne guitar trio who back in their early days recorded their debut album on this side of the Tasman for reasons best known to their accountant.

This is their third album, a marked departure from their humbler indie beginnings with its rich, expansive sound (care of American knob-twiddler Trina Shoemaker), giving frontman Paul Dempsey's semi-acoustic rock songs plenty of room to breathe their deep-sigh tunes. 

Oz rockologists might detect echoes of latter-day Hunters and Collectors, especially when Monsters, Stunt Show, Happy Endings and a few other tracks show off some bulging veins in their anthemic choruses.

But SFK, while resolutely earnest, manage to stop well short of being overwrought, and remain intriguing, whether it's in the crunching time signatures on Three Dimensions or the aptly woozy Seasick, doing their take on the quiet-loud ballad on Jerry, Stand Up, or veering towards dreamy, harmony-heavy alt-country on You Only Hide.

It's a largely sad-eyed affair but SFK's consistently strong songs make Echolalia a classy glum-rock collection. And it's certainly the best contemporary Oz rock album since Powderfinger's breakthrough Odyssey Number Five.

Label: Murmur/Sony