STACK #150 Apr 2017

MUSIC REVIEWS

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Mark Seymour And The Undertow Roll Back The Stone: 1985 - 2016 Mark Seymour has now been a solo artist longer than his duration as frontman of Hunters & Collectors. To celebrate, he’s releasing this live anthology, recorded over three nights in Melbourne. His solo band is aptly named: there’s an understated nature to the Undertow; they slowly drag you under. Conversely, there wasn’t a lot of subtlety to Hunters & Collectors, a band that gleefully poked you in the chest. This record deftly mixes tracks from both, with 14 solo songs and 10 Hunnas classics. Seymour’s solo debut, King Without A Clue , is unfairly overlooked, but the song selection is strong, showcasing a songwriter who’s simply getting better with age. (Liberation) Jeff Jenkins

Tina Arena Greatest Hits And Interpretations She’s Tiny no more. What a career Tina Arena has had, from child star to top 40 hits in the US and UK, and top 10 albums in France. Forty years after her first album ( Tiny Tina and Little John , with Young Talent Time co-star Johnny Bowles), Arena has issued this compelling career anthology. Disc one, titled Retrospective , features 17 hits, from the deliciously cheesy I Need Your Body to the classy I Want To Love You . Disc two, Reimagine , includes Sorrento Moon as a duet with Dannii Minogue, plus an eclectic array of artists covering Arena’s songs including Jimmy Barnes and Kate Miller-Heidke, as well as a new cover of INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart . Glorious. (EMI) Jeff Jenkins Drake More Life Drake’s globetrotting influences on his seventh solo LP jump from London grime and Atlanta trap to hometown Toronto rap, Caribbean dancehall and Afrobeat. On paper, that mix sounds like a hot mess, but the resulting 22 tracks are a surprise-filled playlist to help us reluctantly wave goodbye to summer. More Life has the pop moments that worked on Views and the rap aggression of If You’re Reading This You’re Too Late , with the brilliant bars and songwriting of Hold On We’re Coming Home . Young Thug and Kanye West steal the show in their verses on Sacrifices and Glow respectively, and Drizzy’s take on grime traditions in No Long Talk and KMT are going to polarise a lot of people. Personally, I think it’s refreshing. If Drake’s purpose for this project was to prove he can do it all, he has succeeded. If his purpose was to sell another couple of million records, he will succeed there too. (Universal)Tim Lambert

Colin Hay Fierce Mercy “I would give up anything to not remember everything,” Colin Hay sings on his 13th solo album. What a long, strange trip it’s been for Hay, whose new record actually includes a song called I’m Going To Get You Stoned . He went from Scotland to Australia and then the top of the US charts with

Men At Work , but mega success was followed by mega indifference – Hay even called one of his albums Peaks & Valleys (“Every artist has peaks and valleys,” a major music lawyer told him after his first solo album flopped. “You’re in a f-cking big valley.”). Creatively, though, Hay has never slipped, and Fierce Mercy is another fine record, and perhaps his most musically adventurous since his solo debut 30 years ago. I’mWalking Here incorporates a rap; a horn solo punctuates She Was The Love Of Mine ; chiming piano introduces the gorgeous A Thousand Million Reasons ; strings send Secret Love soaring; and Blue Bay Moon is a lovely country excursion. Hay is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Neil Finn and Paul Kelly, but he should be – he’s one of the greats. “When life has no certainty,” he concludes, “I stick to the melody.” (Compass Records/Sony) Jeff Jenkins

Betty Who The Valley

Zara Larsson So Good Her voice has been compared to Rihanna and her personality to Lily Allen. She has endless talent and confidence coming out of her butt, and she’s only 19 years old. Having won an Australia’s Got Talent - style competition in her home country of Sweden in 2008 (aged 10), Larsson shot to international fame in 2015 with Lush Life, the first single from So Good to be unleashed. Two years and four smash singles later, Larsson presents her buoyant sophomore album, lovingly crafted for sweet- hearted pop lovers. Layers upon sumptuous layers of synth, beats and voice drown out life’s problems in this shiny, ebullient, and perfectly-titled release. (Epic/Sony) Savannah Douglas

James Blunt The Afterlove The ubiquity of You’re Beautiful may have turned James Blunt into a cheap punchline in the mid- aughts, but like the creators of Mmmbop still selling out venues seven albums later, Blunt remains undeterred. Four albums in, Blunt’s balladry lies somewhere between The Chainsmokers and fun., leading to a varied record that hits all of contemporary pop’s high notes: singalong anthems ( Bartender ), tropical house ( Lose My Number ), Kavinsky-ish synthwave ( California ), and more traditional fingerpicking softness ( Time Of Our Lives ). The Afterlove might not break the avant-garde, but it proves that James Blunt is a polished student of pop, and is much more than just one song. (Warner) Jake Cleland

Betty Who's biography reads: “I’d just like to make people dance." The Australian cellist turned pop starlet – née Jessica Anne Newham – has achieved that goal with poise and turned our legs to jelly in the process, bringing an attitude wrapped in a candy- scented packet that’s sometimes sweet, sometimes sour. From its sombre opening of the titular track right through to her beautiful junglesque rendition of Donna Lewis’ ‘90s hit I Love You Always Forever , The Valley pops. Polished high notes and relishable rhythms have a Katy Perry familiarity, while the melodies make you want to sing along even when you’ve never heard them before. (Sony) Savannah Douglas

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APRIL 2017

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