STACK #212 June 2022

MUSIC REVIEWS

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Baby Velvet Please Don't Be in Love with Someone Else Sometimes a record’s title is so compelling it demands to be listened to. Such is the case with Baby Velvet’s impressive debut. The solo project of Melbourne based Hannah Crofts from folk/ country band All Our Exes Live in Texas, Please Don't Be in Love with Someone Else is diary-entry songwriting at its best, with themes of love, self-discovery and womanhood delivered with remarkable sincerity. Crofts holds a mirror up to her self doubts on the buoyant What the Hell Is Wrong with Me , before reflecting on choices made to curb loneliness on Best in Show . Brimming with charm and relatability, Crofts’ debut asserts that she is a talent hard to ignore. (ABC Music) Holly Pereira Chris Cheney The Storm Before the Calm It’s the morning after the night before and you’re dealing with the damage and the debris. After eight albums with The Living End, Chris Cheney’s debut solo album is a redemption story. “Sometimes the only way we ever learn/ Is after we’ve already crashed and burned,” he notes in 2AM . Despite enjoying major success, Cheney is confronting darkness and demons, the loss of family and friends, and a yearning for the days of innocence. The centrepiece of the record is Still Got Friday on My Mind , a heartbreaking hit that deals with his dad’s death. “I wasn’t there when I should have been,” he sings. “And now I only see you in dreams.” With a nod to the classic American songwriters like Springsteen and Tom Petty, Cheney has adeptly made it through to the other side, still “holding on to our impossible dreams”. (Liberator) Jeff Jenkins

FEATURE ARTIST

also won three ARIA Awards and his songs have been streamed more than five billion times. Yep, five billion. Some critics thought he’d struggle to rise above his first hit – Riptide was that good – but as he declares on his third album, “I plan on being ’round”. There’s an intimacy to Vance Joy’s work – it’s as if you’re in the studio with him and he’s singing just for you. “When you’re this close,” he sings, “every touch is amplified.” But his songs are deceptively simple. In the hands of less competent craftsmen, some of this material could easily veer into blandness, but Joy always seems to have a

trick up his sleeve – a key change or a surprising chorus – that sends your spirits soaring. There are a couple of adventurous moments here, including some Indian instrumentation in Wavelength , a song that provides the album’s title (a phrase Joy repeats in the following track, Boardwalk ). But Vance Joy is not really a boundary-pusher. This is timeless pop songwriting that sits comfortably alongside legends such as Paul Simon and Cat Stevens and modern greats such as Ed Sheeran and Dan Wilson (who co-writes This One , one of the many highlights here). (Liberation) Jeff Jenkins

Vance Joy In Our Own Sweet Time

Whatever way you look at it, Vance Joy is an incredible success story. The footballer-turned-troubadour has had two number one albums in Australia and both albums cracked the Top 40 in the US and UK. He’s

Jimmy Barnes Soul Deep 30 The music business never stops throwing up surprises. One summer, Jimmy Barnes decided to record some of his favourite soul songs. Michael Gudinski thought it would be a stop-gap album before the artist’s next 'proper' release. But Soul Deep ended up becoming Barnesy’s – and Mushroom Records’ – biggest-selling album. This anniversary edition comes with four new tracks – the legendary Sam Moore joins Barnesy for a killer version of Soothe Me , a song Sam & Dave first did 55 years ago; Ian Moss adds some vocals and guitar to Reflections ; Josh Teskey and Barnesy deliver a riotous take on the Motown classic Do You Love Me ; and a mighty groove is added to Joe Tex’s I Gotcha , originally the album’s first single. More than 30 years on, Soul Deep is still too big to hide and can’t be denied. (Bloodlines) Jeff Jenkins

Spacey Jane Here Comes Everybody

Perfume Genius Ugly Season

“Don’t it faze you how people change?” Caleb Harper asks in Sitting Up , the opening track on Spacey Jane’s second album. But the Perth band don’t deviate too far from their 2020 breakthrough, Sunlight . And that’s a good thing. Spacey Jane still possess the nervous energy of youth, issuing a record that’s alive on arrival, with an indie rock sound that’s instantly accessible and stadium-ready. COVID might have derailed their debut – “staring at stop signs, waiting for them to say go,” Harper laments in the standout here, It’s Been a Long Day – but this record delivers on the promise of Sunlight and then some. “What will I do tomorrow?” the band asks. How about conquering the world? Far from being the difficult second album, Here Comes Everybody shows that Spacey Jane

Mike Hadreas once again casts an evocative spell on his sixth record under musical moniker Perfume Genius, transforming his much loved indie-pop into something much more avant-garde. Conceived as the musical accompaniment to Kate Wallich’s immersive dance piece The Sun Still Burns Here , Ugly Season turns its attention away from Hadreas’ vocals and lyrics, instead highlighting the array of instrumentation at play. The album sees Hadreas broaden his palette of sounds tenfold, with flutes, chimes and harps pushing production to daring, and at times unpredictable places. Penultimate track Hellbent is the best example of this, utilising an array of samples to give the song an industrial bent. (Matador/Remote Control) Holly Pereira

are ready for stardom. (AWAL) Jeff Jenkins

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