The five piece Able Tasmans are Leslie Jonkers (keyboards, vocals) Craig Mason (drums) Graeme Humphries (guitar, keyboards, vocals) Peter Keen (guitar, trumpet, vocals) and Jane Dodd (bass, vocals). On this album, the group weave a kind of story-telling pop music with lead vocals passing between different voices within many of the songs and a few shorter instrumental pieces also adding an atmospheric touch between tunes.

Store In A Cool Place was recorded at Park House in the former Carrington Hospital complex in Auckland -- an environment that the band and engineer Tex Houston felt added a little 'creep' to some late night sessions.

For all the spectral assistance that may or may not be there -- although towards the end of the hour-long album there are moments where something is defintely out there -- fans of the Ables' previous musical explorations will find the sound still warm and heavily wrapped as usual with layers of keyboards and guitars. Compared to previous albums like Hey Spinner! and Somebody Ate My Planet, Store In A Cool Place does feature tighter song structures and less extended passages of keyboard wig-out. Around a string of great song highlights like "Giant", "My Name Is Peter Keen", "Dog Whelk 2" (a brilliant new version of a song originally recorded for their last EP, The Shape Of Dolls) and "Home On The Range" are peppered brief musical interludes like the appropriately circus-like "Orenthal's Face". The album closes with the 12 minute "Parallax", an Eno-like meditation which is one of the most beautiful pieces of music yet recorded by a band who have created more than their fair share of graceful sounds over the past few years.

Brimming with inventive lyrical and musical turns, the Able Tasmans have made their Store In A Cool Place well worth stopping by indeed.