One look at the cover image, a scene drawn by guitarist David Mitchell, shows that things appear seriously amok in the 3Ds' world. A lecherous couple play a drunken card game next to a carnivorous plant, a decapitated body, a rabid dog and a dying angel, while another angel can't even get in... what strange news indeed.

Things run seriously amok on the musical front on this album too. But that news will be reason for rejoicing amongst 3Ds fans, always eager for a fresh dose of this band's blend of the two faces of their hometown of Dunedin. If the straight-up sensibility of drummer Dominic Stones and bassist Denise Roughan's tireless work in the rhythm section represents the presbyterian stoicism of the Scottish city at the wrong end of the world, then it's met full in the face by the gaelic lurch of spinning-out craziness courtesy of Dave Saunders and Dave Mitchell, two of the Flying Nun stable's finer exponents of the art of welding noise and melody together with electrified guitar strings. In the middle of the storm, all four 3Ds' contributions meet in a sense of song that's more than the marriage of solidity and stupidity or an inebriated free-for-all. After seven years of music-making together, Strange News From The Angels shows The 3Ds know exactly what they're doing and are more on their game than ever.

The 3Ds are captured here for the first time in antique 24 track splendour at the group's favourite Fish Street studio. Recently relocated to a disused radio recording studio near the 3Ds' favourite old First Church (celebrated on their debut ep, Fish Tales) the new Fish Street was also close enough to Dunedin's cinemas for the avid horror movie fans in the band to whip out and see Seven four times while engineer/co-producer Tex Houston performed whatever miracles/masonic rituals were required to keep the creaking tape machine going. But two roomy inches of tape ultimately adds a satisfying sonic depth that rounds out Strange News From The Angels.

The 3Ds' combined songwriting talent is a way of matching that much talked about sound with skeletal structures brought to the band by one member. These fourteen songs see vocal tasks split evenly between the two Daves, and they show the band dealing to each tune with a focus that blurs the distinctions between their two songwriting styles, increasing the overall impact of the album on the listener.

Previous albums have seen things demarcated a little more clearly. Hellzapoppin (1992; a Mitchell-created cover sees a volcano spew forth colourfully painted dough over a painted ocean) saw the bright-eyed pop of Saunders' songs like "Outer Space" and "Hellzapoppin" contrast with Mitchell's string- and lung-busting efforts exemplified by "Leave The Dogs To Play". .The Venus Trail (1993; on the cover, humans and giant rats run fearfully out of town, pulling down their pants and pulling out their hair, drawn by Mitchell left-handed "cos I was getting too good with my right") had Dave Mitchell's writing, simultaneously more lyrical (the beautiful title track and genuinely haunting "Spooky") and wonderfully, heavily demented ("Philadelphia Rising"), outnumbering David Saunders' pop songs — themselves turning a tad more cartoon screwy (try the classic "Hey Seuss").

So back to Strange News from The Angels, where Saunders songs are less sliding along on the cracking feedback-drenched riffs of old than snaking out into deeper territory. "Dust", "Vector 27" and "Ben" are strident but with a great mess around the edges to get yourself lost in that these kind of 3Ds songs never had time for before, while "Riding The Whale" has an sweet expansiveness that suits its title all too well. It's Dominic Stones to the fore in an unaccustomed time signature for "Fangworld" and again in "Carrion Days", a country song as strange as anything by Palace. Mitchell songs give us contrasting dynamics in "Seven Days Of Kindness", passionate axe-phixiation in "Animal" and "Devil Red", while he grabs you with an unlikely hook in "The Fiery Angel" and sings words intoxicated with fury, wonder and demons the whole way.

Of course what's missing is a song or two by the sweet-voiced Denise, caught with a frog in her throat at the recording, and making The 3Ds' Strange News less one part angel, another part succubus than before. More simply, here's an album that packs passion, fury and fun into songs that offer up a feast of pleasures and surprises for jaded ears. You can say much of it has pop, one moment of it is country, it definitely rocks, and it might be a little like drinking tequila in a churchyard, making the kind of dangerous antics Mitchell depicts on the cover... but Strange News is good news indeed.