Album review: Daniel Johns’ solo debut Talk

ALBUM REVIEW: Daniel Johns sheds the skin of his Silverchair rock persona on his long-awaited solo debut, Talk.

album reviews may 23

Australian Daniel Johns dances to his own beat on Talk, released today.

Talk

Daniel Johns

EMI

****

If there were ever any doubt that Daniel Johns has shed the skin of his Silverchair rock persona the 15 songs on this long-awaited solo debut knock such uncertainty out of the park.

In place of the ‘Chair’s early rock ‘n’ roll bluster and its more refined final album, Young Modern, and by way of Johns’s diversion into electro glam pop with Paul Mac in the Dissociatives, comes this neo-soul reincarnation in which the singer turns his falsetto up to 11 and underpins it with a mix of modern electronic beats, bleeps and synth washes.

The result is certainly bold and at times exquisite, but Talk falls short of being a solo masterpiece, perhaps because it is far from a solo effort.

The cast list is long and impressive on paper. It includes the Presets’ Julian Hamilton (who co-wrote Silverchair’s hit Straight Lines), Lorde and Broods producer Joel Little, M-Phazes, Styalz and on four tracks the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

All 15 songs are an exercise in pushing Johns’ voice into new terrain, whether by physical effort or by studio trickery. There’s a lot of the latter on the pedestrian Too Many, a co-write/co-production with Sydney-based Dutch producer Louis Schoorl.

That song features the ACO, who are more usefully exposed on the Portishead-like Faithless (Johns/Styalz), in which strings are a melancholy foil to the song’s otherwise strident trip-hop. At just over an hour Talk could have taken a trim. Several tracks are a triumph only of style over substance, most strikingly the slick soul outing Imagination (Johns/M-Phazes), which sounds like something Prince would record on his day off.

The biggest rewards come in the moments that don’t rely solely on the soul brief. The ACO lends a filmic sweep to Johns’ intimate vocal on the piano-led New York, one of the few songs that harks back to the twisted melodies of his former band.

Even better is the celebratory, slightly sinister Going On 16, on which Johns diverts from the falsetto treatment to deliver a menacing pop croon.

The closing, arty ramble Good Luck hints at how Johns’ might be feeling about his latest direction: “I don’t know where I’m going, but I know what to do,” he sings in creepy falsetto. Upwards and onwards, one would suggest.

Read Iain Shedden’s full review of Talk in Review in The Weekend Australian tomorrow.