You know the story by now... First, lock Chris's kids out of his Auckland home over weekends when Alec can get away from his own family an island away in Christchurch. Then drag out the new songs, the battered old instruments (and a couple of new additions to the old instrument pile from the local rag, Trade & Exchange!) and stick the whole thing together with a tasty blend of PVA, Ados and flour paste. None of that flash studio superglue here, mate - just the good old-fashioned stuff.

And the good old-fashioned stuff is all here in the songs. Fifty Flavours Of Glue is definitely the most melodically-charged Tall Dwarfs album of the 1990s. It's a veritable pop racket, kids! Cue up the handclap intro to the insanely catchy snot-along "Gluey, Gluey" and we're off...

Alec expresses their gentler pop side in "Baby" and "Smacked", Chris croons "The Ugly Mire Of Deep Hel d Feelings", howls his way through rockers "Just Do It!" and "Fragile", and skips his way through a delightful song called "The Future See".

Of course there's also time to whoop it up like a couple of hillbilly idiots on "Fatty Fowl In Gravy Stew", play Lennon-blues on "Like Someone Else" or act all sacreligious on "The Communion", before turning the synthesiser loose on the spacey "Endure" and "T otalitarian Chant Of Freedom".

All the way through, it's peppered with the in ventiveness we love the Tall Dwarfs for - songs co loured with anything from Alec's brilliant guitar p laying to the duo's fondness for the grand arrangeme nt of silly sonics or Chris's superb ear for a happy musical accident.

This album is proof for sure that, after already recording over 120 songs togethe r in 17 years of Tall Dwarfing, this here m usical fountain is a NZ national treasure. Bu t it is also no museum piece - Fifty Flavours Of Glue wobbles, rocks and rolls like a beautifull y-crafted thing of (ir)relevance to our upside down world. We live in times where inspired loons like the Tall Dwarfs are the special mu sical friends you need. We can't tell you wh at drugs to take to help your dancing but we do recommend getting out of your tree on their kind of glue today.