Robert Forster, Ella Hooper, Sam Smith: New album reviews

Affected by personal tragedy, one of Brisbane’s favourite sons sings an ode to the streets of his adopted homeland PLUS Ella Hooper and Sam Smith.

Robert Forster has released his eighth solo album. Picture: Stephen Gibbons

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

ALTERNATIVE

Robert Forster, The Candle and the Flame

(EMI) ****

“I’m in a story with her, no I can’t live without her.” Like most exceptional works of art, Robert Forster’s eighth solo album was forged from adversity, after the cancer diagnosis of his German wife and collaborator Karin Bäumler. Opening track She’s a Fighter is minimalist yet effective in both form and purpose. The grooving Tender Years is a standout with its reflections on time and circumstance and “how far we’ve come”, while Always chugs along like time itself, a quirky number that recalls Forster’s Custard collaborators and, yes, The Go-Betweens. The country-ish I Don’t Do Drugs, I Do Time could be from his C.O.W. days. And while The Go-Betweens’ Streets of Your Town might be claimed by Brisbane, the similarly themed The Roads is Forster’s impression of Bäumler’s homeland of Bavaria, and personifies the familiar thoroughfares that take you places. And he waxes autobiographical on closing track When I Was a Young Man: “I lived in a house down a lane/It was so beautiful there the times were insane.”

ALT-COUNTRY

Ella Hooper, Small Town Temple

(Reckless Records) ***

Also getting retrospective and introspective is an all-grown-up Ella Hooper, who has sung of her roots in Victoria’s Violet Town since she was an ingenue out front of Killing Heidi (see/hear Weir). These days, however, the music is more pastoral, organic... flesh-on-wood. Smouldering sax lends a jazzy feel to the title track, while she recalls her courtship and seduction on Words Like These: “All I know is I was taken down with such ease.” In contrast, the upbeat Oh My Goddess! celebrates her discovery of self-empowerment. The Basics and Stuff evokes the gentle summer breeze of distant memories as Hooper sings of her humble beginnings, with maybe a pang of regret that “I left so soon”. There’s the insistent beat and playful fiddle of Get Down, Stay Down, while the haunting, introspective Long Gully Road closes the set with flute and further musings over her origins.

POP

Sam Smith, Gloria

(Universal) ***

Mere months after Logan’s own Darren Hayes released his affirmative Homosexual album, LGBTQIA icon Sam Smith graces us with a similarly loud-and-proud effort. “We love Who We Love,” they sing with Ed Sheeran on the album’s emotive standout ballad. “I wear my flaws like jewellery/Right now I’m drippin’ ” Smith admits on Perfect. “I’m not perfect, but I’m worth it... I’m workin’ on it.” Their sultry vocals are often gender-ambiguous. Opener Love Me More is about overcoming bullying to find self-worth. There’s the choral title track, while disco banger I’m Not Here to Make Friends channels Dua Lipa’s Levitating as Smith declares: “I need a lover.”

Originally published as Robert Forster, Ella Hooper, Sam Smith: New album reviews