Four of the five members of the band are teachers, and guitar-playing multi-instrumentalist Rob Milne concedes that does come through in the songwriting.
"Because almost all of us are parents now — Ed, our drummer, has just become a grandparent actually.
"That involvement with children as parents and as teachers has probably snuck into the songwriting a fair bit, children and fatherhood and teaching.
"I tried to talk them into calling the album something related to teachers but we couldn’t come up with anything catchy enough."
However, the teaching connection is largely coincidental, several of the band members having associations stretching back to their university days, playing in bands — ska, punk, rock, jazz.
And any lessons tonight will be in the possibilities of collaborative songwriting, as the new album constitutes something of a change in direction for the band.
"Because the previous EP was reasonably soft, quite acoustic and quite mellow, we thought we might bring a slightly rockier, jauntier angle to this one," Milne says. "So it has definitely stepped up a little bit, it has probably got a little more of a psychedelic rock angle to it, rather than a more chilled out indie folk vibe."
Some of that is likely to have been influenced by the music they’d been listening to, he says.
"I think it is also that most of us grew up in the ’90s when rock was prominent and in the charts and hard-edged, so there is probably a lot of that in our musical blood waiting to come out."
Then there is the inevitable contribution of technology, the magic of guitar pedals and the possibility of experimentation proving seductive for some.
That’s not to say the music on Signal Hill, which will be played in full tonight, is all of a piece, not with almost the entire band contributing songs.
That rich mix of inputs works well for the band, Milne says, particularly as they have enough musical interests in common for everyone to get on board with whatever is best for a given song.
"I guess half the reason, if not more, we play music together is for the camaraderie and we love that process, doing it in a way that’s enjoyable and convivial and co-operative is part of the fun of it."
The album is out now.
The gig
- The Mentalist Collective plays Port Chalmers Town Hall tonight, with support from Lara Rose, 8pm. Tickets, undertheradar.co.nz. All ages, under-16s free.
