Everything But the Girl, Floodlights, Angel: New album reviews

Tracey Thorn has followed up her fifth solo record with Everything But the Girl’s first studio outing in a quarter-century PLUS Floodlights and Angel.

Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt are Everything But the Girl. Picture: Edward Bishop

This week’s album reviews from The Courier-Mail (ratings out of five stars)...

POP

Everything But the Girl, Fuse

(Buzzin’ Fly/Virgin) ***1/2

It was nothing but the girl on Tracey Thorn’s fifth solo album (2018’s autobiographical Record). Now, nearly a quarter-century since their last studio outing as a duo, she and Ben Watt have fused again. And Thorn remains in as fine a voice as in her ’80s heyday. While Record was a largely upbeat slice of guitar-based pop, this is a more subdued, synthy affair, in keeping with EBTG’s image. Their trademark sound is unmistakeable on the deep-bass ambience of opener Nothing Left to Lose: “I need a thicker skin, this pain keeps getting in.” Other highlights include the trancelike ambience of No One Knows We’re Dancing with its synth flourishes straight out of the ’80s, and the sombre Run a Red Light. Meanwhile, Lost is a laundry list of loss: “I lost my mind... my place... my bags... my biggest client... my perfect job... the plot... Then I just lost it.”

ROCK

Floodlights, Painting of My Time

(Virgin) ***

On their all-important sophomore set Melbourne’s Floodlights cement their credentials as rockers in the tradition of ’80s Aussie legends from The Angels and Hunters and Collectors to Spy v Spy and The Triffids. It’s an unmistakeable Down Under flavour, steeped in local people and places. And Louis Parsons’ baritone ranks alongside those of Nick Cave or Mark Seymour, often delivered as urgent spoken word. “Lessons Learnt, lessons forgotten/How can history repeat so often,” he cries, in one of several songs punctuated by harmonica. Parsons is joined by songwriter-guitarist Ashlee Kehoe for On the Television, on which they take apart empty promises of a Lucky Country and fair go: “The time is now!“ The title track is among the most urgent, straight-ahead rock on the album, once again augmented by harmonica bursts. Then there’s the subtle trumpet and sweet harmonies of Something Blue, whose guitars even recall Lifehouse. And Divinyls’ Boys in Town meets The Triffids’ Wide Open Road on the Wide Open Land, with its pulsing bass and sumptuous horns.

ROCK

Angel, Once Upon a Time

(Cleopatra) **1/2

Like Journey, Foreigner and other single-name bands of their era, Angel are still rocking but with a somewhat different line-up, though original guitarist Punky Meadows and singer Frank DiMino are back. Like the band that discovered them, KISS, and Alice Cooper, they’re in a theatrical vein – indeed, Liar Liar and Without You recall early KISS – with DiMino’s commanding vocals reminiscent of those of Bruce Dickinson or Ozzy Osbourne. The Torch opens proceedings on a triumphal, operatic note, while straight-ahead rockers include It’s Alright and Psyclone. There’s the Layla riff and audience adulation of Rock Star, the sprawling ballad Let It Rain, and the ecstatic moans of Once Upon a Time an Angel and a Devil Fell in Love – “and it didn’t end well”. It even veers into Jim Steinman territory on Blood of My Blood, Bone of My Bone. It’s nothing you haven’t heard 1000 times before, but for devotees of the genre too much is never enough.