![]() Local Brisbane references and addresses litter the Day Glo–prairie settings of “The Old House” and “Night of Light,” but the resonance travels far as “Swinburne Ashes” and “Crescent Lagoon” bring the driving melancholy of early Wilco and classic R.E.M. Enriched with additional guitars, keyboards and the Dublin-born brothers Noel and Liam Fitzpatrick on pedal-steel guitar (the former) and banjo and mandolin (the latter), Halfway combine the pub-army heft of the Waterboys on 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues with the dream-state Nashville of Lambchop and a pioneer-fiber storytelling at the junction of Johnny Cash and Queensland icons the Go-Betweens. Halfway, Rain Lover (ABC Music, Australia)įrom the other side of world, in both sorrow and geography, Rain Lover is the sublime, country-dusted sixth album by this eight-man band from Brisbane, Australia - actually founded further inland, in Central Queensland, in 2000 by singer-guitarist-writers John Busby and Chris Dale with drummer Elwin Hawtin. It will turn the real Morrissey green with envy. ![]() While there is a great, overt Smiths-go-R&B moment in the brooding jangle of “To the Top,” “Centre of My Universe” is the more exhilarating throwback - a Northern Soul–style stomper decked out like a majestic ’65 Motown outtake. The extra poise implied by Lightburn’s middle initial in the billing is right there in the first track, “Anew,” then all through this album - the street-corner-symphony effect of his overdubbed vocal harmonies, as if Brian Wilson had borrowed Mayfield and the Impressions for the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. But Lightburn evokes a more intriguing ideal - Scott Walker produced by the early-Seventies Curtis Mayfield - with the vulnerable, urgent songwriting and deep-soul flair of his second solo album, Hear Me Out. Lightburn is, in fact, a worthy, spiritual descendant of the perpetually anguished ex-Smiths singer - so much so that the latter toured with the Dears as his opening act in 2006. ![]() With his plaintive, swooning voice and the luxuriant sweep of his records with the Canadian indie-rock band the Dears, Murray Lightburn can’t help being compared to Morrissey. You go around the world in roots and melodrama on these three albums, all from experienced specialists in forensic romanticism and all at new peaks in their searching. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |