Album Review: Prime Corner

Office Dog, just in case you’ve been living under a rock, have released their second album, Prime Corner. They’re an indie alternative band with a polished pop sound that contrasts nicely to the sprinkle of lo-fi sparkle they add to their tidy rock tunes. They combine jangle and 2000’s indie rock sensibilities with a lightly fuzzed-out grunge heart beating beneath the sheen.

The band began in 2021 as an extension of the solo career of front man Kane Strang (who had already released three albums under Flying Nun Records and Dead Oceans) who sought out a more collaborative approach to music making, so joined forces with drummer Mitchell Innes and bassist Rassani Tolovaa. The three had previously worked together and are all from Otepoti/Dunedin (where The Chills, The Clean, and Verlaines hail from) and now the band resides in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland.

On Prime Corner, the band experiments with catchy melodies under relatable lyrics about the modern condition with lush and layered production. Open guitar tunings create rich sonic textures with strings ringing out like drones or creating unique chord voicings while much of the thunder in heavier moments is fashioned by the rumbling bass as the drums tidily keep time understated until an opportunity arises to bust out some quick fills. Strang’s clear and gentle vocals are doubled and sit atop this tapestry of sound, speaking words that are at once relatable, commonplace and occasionally devastatingly beautiful in their haiku-like conciseness.

Office Dog was a fill-in word that was eventually accepted as the final band name. Caught from an everyday conversation, the term is uniquely post-modern and mundane. So too is it with the title of the album itself, which Strang saw in a real estate ad for a soon-to-be-developed building site. The lyrics on this release are perhaps a little banal, but the band whips up some dramatic moments to these seemingly dreary, observational opinions about life to create a dynamic collection of songs with astute comments on contemporary existence. The songs seem fresh, as if they were recorded quickly and without unnecessary production.

There’s an immediacy and charm to the recordings, especially the louder songs that include some tasteful feedback, but for the most part it’s a chilled journey with more ballads than bangers. Acoustic guitar tones feature prominently, creating a warm and personal album at odds with the more angular and harsher sounds of their contemporary post-punks or indie rockers. However, the album contains the band’s heaviest moments too – there’s a range of emotions to explore, but the general mood appears to be contemplative rather than defiant or desperate. International bands that come to mind are Pavement, Sonic Youth, Modest Mouse and New Zealand’s own, The Beths and The Bats. Relatively quickly recorded over five days at Roundhead Studios in December in 2025 with engineer and producer De Stevens, Prime Corner feels utterly genuine, disarmingly beautiful and painfully melancholic. Probably a good break up record to be honest.

Opening track Front Row Seat is a commentary on the constant feed of news, conflict, shopping and controversial topics the general public is bombarded with. The lyrics warn us about being forced into the ‘front row’ but feeling unable to change much of what we see. There’s an uneasy tension to the track which arrives as Strang sings: “Everything I’d won / Held up for the gun.” The band sounds balanced and carefree until that line. In the music video, directed by Sophie Black, this awkward sensation is explored by using a corporate team bonding activity similar to musical chairs.

The lyrics deceptively hint at the unease: “Patience, It’s a heavy crown, Have I been in a showroom my whole life? Not ready to leave, Not ready to buy,” hinting at a dislike of having to be shocked or advertised to constantly. The song is jolly until the ‘gun’ lyric hits, with a hypnotic rhythm that would no doubt go down well in the live setting. The band plays with the dissonance playing against the jolly melody until the song disintegrates then climaxes into a joyous explosion. Stereogum included the song in The 5 Best Songs of the Week, and referred to it as “a propulsive, guitar-heavy anthem”, which I’d agree with, but replace ‘heavy’ with ‘prominent’.

Second track Futures sounds more inspired by Sonic Youth with a melancholic melody over an unusual, jazz-inspired chord. Delicate melodies swell and interplay creating a kaleidoscopic effect. Strang warns us that “Futures catching up on me today,” as if the clean, sparkly tones belie a treacherous journey. The song appears to be inspired by both nostalgia and fear of the future which continues some of the themes from the previous song. “In familiar rooms / I got tangled in an old scene,” Strang sings in his relaxed tenor. At the end of the song it picks up some urgency and leads us toward a clean-toned conclusion.

This contrasts with the next track Reins which begins with a swaggering swing-beat intro and has more of a bite to it with some lightly overdriven tones and complex riffs. The lyrics suggest giving up on control and letting fate take over: “You take the reins / I’ve never had ‘em anyhow”. The song has a similar vibe to the others preceding it, establishing a theme of capitulation to the powers that be in a dull world: “A concrete sky in the harbour mouth / A cold city lies staring at itself”. Strang says the song is about “being your own worst enemy … and wanting someone else to come along and steer the ship.”

These themes continue in songs like Permanent Day, which is largely acoustically driven and is the musical equivalent of a sigh. “I’ve spent six months dancing with the dread / Snapped out of youth with a smack to the head” are perfect lyrics to the mood created. Between sections, Innes drums frantically, which contrasts with the more relaxed sounding instruments and voice. Slowing To A Walk is even moodier with a haunting, minor vocal melody that alternates doubling the guitar part or creating a harmony to it. Strang seems especially sad on this track when he drawls he “crashed it through your garden big and bright”, which seems like the kind of thing you might brag about, but here it sounds confessional if anything.

Lesson features a crystalline, complex acoustic guitar part that sounds inspired by Midwest-emo-math-rock. The guitar fireworks simmer down to make room for the vocals as Strang sings plaintively, painting a scene of a friendship gone sour or possibly an ex-lover: “I’ve hoped / You’d be in the next room / You’d be one field over / The end of this road / Wouldn’t you know / It’s a carnival / With the prizes gone.” The song, like others, is instantly catchy rather than dirge-like, but the subject matter and the imagery the words create are quite gloomy.

Homemade Canyon, in comparison, is surprisingly upbeat with (dare I say it?) country rock overtones. While the darkness defined the mystery in earlier songs, here the light returns and gives hope: “I’ll shake the dark and it falls out / An afternoon of morning light / A homemade canyon brought to life.” The production here demonstrates the width of genres the band can play with, even if the members fall back into familiar roles and frequencies by mid-song. Dirt includes some truly gorgeous chord progressions with a gentle melody washing over everything providing some unexpected notes. The song is fragile in its complexity, not only in its instrumentation but even lyrics are searching for someone, perhaps the protagonist themselves. In an album filled with personal songs, this might be the surprisingly most delicately intimate.

Gold Things was the first song written for Prime Corner, and it established the overall sound and sensation of the new album. Strang says of the song, “[It’s] about getting what you’ve wanted, or reaching a place you’ve seen off in the distance for a long time.” The lyrics seem to be about yearning for needful objects to acquire and this is metaphorically labelled as gold throughout the song. It starts with a bang with light overdrive but high energy. The melodies weave and respond between sections to perform a rather beautiful segment and then the song ends suddenly, so surprisingly you kind of wish it went on a little longer and perhaps that’s the intention. The band prove they can entertain purely with their instruments on the gorgeous Everywhere Song that features elegant guitar playing with shimmeringly crisp notes held together by march-like drums until the last stunning chord.

Title track and album closer, Prime Corner, is perhaps the strongest song on the record but is perfectly placed to end on both a high note and conclude some of the questions posed during the album. Thematically, the song seems sigh-like with Strang’s falsetto voice delivering some poignant lyrics. The band demonstrates a wide range of tones from the rumbling bass to the crystal clear guitar parts that sparkle above. Unusual melodies build and crash over the course of the song as we encounter odd imagery painted by the words such as: “But I’m just counting embers / In a house of ash”.

The band is tight and lively until the last note rings out bringing Prime Corner to a satisfying close. This song is poetic, powerful and personal. It epitomises the best aspects of the band in perfect balance and the placement of it as a triumphant last call to action is an admirable choice. The theme of fate returns (“From a distance I watched, Watched you float away, Adrift in the carnage, With your complimentary fate,”) but on this track the earlier disillusionment is replaced with acceptance, but it feels like a choice rather than a surrender to the forces of the universe. Actually, there’s something decidedly victorious about it, but I do wonder if Office Dog have done so with tongue-in-cheek irony, but I doubt it somehow. The band seems too heart-on-your-sleeve to toy with sarcasm.

Prime Corner is a complex and sincere collection of memorable tunes. The band seems to be going from strength to strength and this album is testament to their continuing songwriting abilities and powerful performances.