Album review: Midnight Oil finds a fitting end with its 13th and possibly final release, Resist
On a collection aptly named Resist, the Sydney rock band retains its trademark urgency and instrumental dynamics laced with lyrical vitriol.
Album reviews for week of February 18, 2022:
ROCK
Resist
Midnight Oil
Sony Music Australia
“Who left the bag of idiots open? Who drank the bottle of bad ideas?” These two zingers from The Barka-Darling River, a key track on Midnight Oil’s 13th and perhaps final album, show that even the band’s jokes (and they are rare) retain a vitriolic double edge. Barka, aka “the forgotten river, our mother and the blood in our veins”, in the words of the Barkandji people, is reduced to a trickle, a near-barren bargaining chip between corrupt politicians and the cotton farmers who rule them. As songwriters Rob Hirst and Jim Moginie put it, “what you see is an act of terror, the bush surrenders to the ball and chain”. Political chicanery and environmental vandalism are just two of the familiar concerns addressed by the band on Resist, along with climate change and institutional apathy (Rising Seas, To the Ends of the Earth), Australia’s dependence on fossil fuels (Reef, At the Time of Writing) and its chronic neglect of asylum seekers (Lost At Sea).
It’s all delivered with the Oils’ trademark urgency and instrumental dynamics, the odd recycled vintage riff (there’s a classic from T Rex on At the Time of Writing), Moginie’s always imaginative keyboards, and the occasional injection of cello, violin, synthesised French horn and sax. There’s even a snatch of spoken word from Kamahl on the closing Last Frontier, one of two songs penned by Peter Garrett (plus two co-written with Moginie). Drummer Hirst, as always driving the band like he stole it, sings lead on two tracks and has three co-writes with Moginie. The latter is all over the record, having a hand in all but Garrett’s two songs (including five solo compositions), assisting with engineering, and playing guitars and keys. Fellow guitarist Martin Rotsey is his usual spiky foil, while Bones Hillman – the band’s late, lamented bassist – was fortuitously able to finish his parts on the album before succumbing to cancer in 2020. With a final tour resuming this month, Resist draws a fitting line under Midnight Oil’s 46-year career.
Phil Stafford
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INDIE POP/ROCK
Cordi Elba
Lime Cordiale & Idris Elba
Chugg Music/7Wallace Music
A partnership that seems unconventional: a surf-rock leaning duo and a Hollywood heavyweight? Together on a mini-album? It’s 2022 and weirder things have happened. The fusion of velvety rich arrangements by Lime Cordiale – aka Sydney sibling duo Oli and Louis Leimbach – and Idris Elba’s unmistakeable vocal presence works surprisingly well. Early release Apple Crumble set the scene: this collaboration was a serious one that each participant clearly thrived within. The record has festival-ready cuts such as Meant To Be A Holiday, while other areas of Cordi Elba exhibit the artists’ natural dynamic, bouncing off each other with wit and charm (What’s Not To Like). Infectious melodies meet seasoned vocal tones, and the sum is a fun soundtrack to an unusual pairing. Cordi Elba doesn’t sit so far outside the Leimbach brothers’ wheelhouse that it feels alien to their other recorded output. Rather, these six tracks exist as a luscious and entertaining diversion for the duo, as they tinker away in the wings on their third album.
Sosefina Fuamoli
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WORLD
Our Island
Small Island Big Song
Small Island Big Song
This is an ambitious but apposite and admirable collaborative project for current times between Australian producer Tim Cole and a cohort of artists from across the Indo-Pacific region, who created this music while locked down on their respective island homes. The resultant songs — all written and recorded via the web across the ocean between Australia and Madagascar, Mauritius, Tahiti, Taiwan, PNG, New Zealand and several other nations — reflect communal concern for, and experience of environmental and cultural loss. While a handful of tracks draw on the mourning traditions of the musicians’ heritage, it’s not all doom and gloom. Festival of the Living Ocean, for example, which blends PNG drumming brilliance with intriguing Malagasy valiha (bamboo tube zither) and kabosy (box-shaped guitar), counterbalances Lament for a Dying Ocean. Madjadjumak gathers impressive momentum on the back of Maori haka, Taiwanese hoko and Rapa Nui and Borneo counterparts. Elsewhere, an inspired rearrangement of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 enviro anthem Mercy Mercy Me features some truly uplifting female voices.
Tony Hillier
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INDIE POP
Blue No More
Gabriella Cohen
Independent
Proving that lockdown needn’t produce only sombre self-reflection, Gabriella Cohen opens her third album with Frangelico Dreams, a distinctly upbeat spin on pandemic-era anxieties. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter pokes fun at both the doomsaying media and her own self-involvement while reacquainting us with her languid vocal drawl and timeless bubblegum pop. One of three songs produced by Ball Park Music frontman Sam Cromack, that tune perfectly encapsulates the album’s frisky escapism. The arrangements are notably sparse, placing most of the focus on Cohen’s smouldering singing and retro harmonising (including the largely a cappella title track). The especially catchy Just For the Summer laments the shortened lifespan of a seasonal romance, while I Just Got So High pays affectionate tribute to self-medicating. If Cohen’s songs seem low-stakes on first pass, they are reliable for subtle surprises and reversals. Observe how the bluesy Son of a Gun spins a whole story out of a couple’s lunch order, and how Seagull aims for personal affirmation through the tears.
Doug Wallen
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Album reviews for week of February 12, 2022:
ROCK
Earthling
Eddie Vedder
Universal
This is the first “proper” solo album from the Pearl Jam frontman after one movie soundtrack and a cover-heavy ukulele record. Earthling therefore comes with significant expectations, given the emotional resonance and power of much of his work. The problem, if problem is quite the right word, is that several songs sound more like Eddie Vedder having a bash at writing in the style of one or other of his heroes. For example, Mrs Mills is a Rutles-lite attempt to write a Paul McCartney Beatles track, complete with tinny piano, I Am The Walrus orchestrations, Hello Goodbye piccolo trumpet, and Ringo Starr. Picture is a jaunty duet with Elton John and is one of John’s better songs of recent times while simultaneously being one of Vedder’s worst. Similarly, Stevie Wonder’s harmonica is incredible on the frantic Try, but the rest of the song is as nondescript as its title, and when ex-Heartbreaker Benmont Tench turns up on the limp Tom Petty pastiche, Long Way, you’d be forgiven for shrugging “sure, that might as well happen”.
And if the album was nothing but Vedder and his famous mates trying on different musical disguises and larking about, that would be one thing; but they clash with the deeply personal moments at odds with Earthling’s sonic costume party. The album really hits home when Vedder explores the complications that come with grief at a friend’s suicide on the album’s highlight (and potential Chris Cornell tribute), Brother the Cloud, or when his voice drifts into the ethereal final track, On My Way, which features recordings of the father Vedder never really knew, the late Edward Severson Jr. The production doesn’t help: the over-processed drums sound like a machine, which is nuts when you have Starr and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith on your album, and when Vedder does rock out as on Good and Evil it’s impossible not to wonder how it would sound with his bandmates’ bottom-end grunt. Ultimately, Earthling sounds more like a mosey through Vedder’s scrapbook and record collection than an album, but hey: there are far worse ways to spend one’s middle age than by getting a bunch of pals together and making a record.
Andrew P. Street
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INDIE ROCK
Misericorde
Tiny Little Houses
Ivy League
Named for a knife once used to finish off wounded knights, the second album by Melbourne quartet Tiny Little Houses dwells on many symbolic injuries of its own. “I deserve everything that I get / Every punch in the gut / Every kick in the head,” sings frontman Caleb Karvountzis on opener Cold Showers, his creaky voice dripping with angst as he self-administers such lashings amid distorted, 1990s-style alt-rock. He also wishes aloud for a vehicular collision on lead single Car Crash, but thankfully his tortured sentiments are tempered with knowing humour and abundant hooks. And you can hear Karvountzis reaching beyond his immediate life on certain tracks, recasting a classic fable to critique the algorithm age (Emperor) and adapting an 1897 poem that also inspired a Paul Simon song (Richard Cory). At 54 minutes, this record is a bit too long to sustain its largely uniform musical approach – though the quasi-country gait of Take a Swing lends some variety to the quartet’s fuzz-swathed internal monologues.
Doug Wallen
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HIP-HOP
Legacy
Birdz
Bad Apples Music
Melbourne-based Butchulla man Birdz established himself early in his career as a storyteller with purpose. 2017’s Train Of Thought was the moment of arrival for the hip-hop artist born Nathan Bird: he carried the pain, frustrations and perceptions of his community with strength, channelling it all into a determined and impactful body of work. With his second album, the rapper hasn’t lost any sense of potency in his cadence; nor has he lost any of that bite that permeated through earlier material. Legacy truly lives up to its name. Incorporating the talents of artists such as Trials, Thom Crawford, Ngaiire, Missy Higgins and Fred Leone – the latter on Bagi-la-m Bargan, which polled at No.30 on the 2020 triple j Hottest 100 – Birdz has curated a sound that represents some of the country’s most unique voices and sonic ears. The album is as much a triumphant return as it is a career-anchoring record: soaring arrangements, melodic production and boom-bap rap style soundtracks 10 tracks of Black empowerment and resilience.
Sosefina Fuamoli
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JAZZ
The Ballad Collection
Gregg Arthur
Juniper Jazz
Of all musical genres, perhaps vocal jazz best enables the listener to live an imaginary life. Not everyone can share the bittersweet life experiences of, say, Billie Holiday — but through her music we can certainly relate to them. The music selected by Australian singer Gregg Arthur offers, to some extent, a sophisticated world of romance and international travel. We might be in Singapore, sipping champagne at Raffles, and entertaining a marriage proposal, or perhaps enjoying autumn in New York. The two highlights of this splendid album are the Jerome Kern standard The Way You Look Tonight and the superior 1950s tune Answer Me My Love. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe both are masterpieces. The latter reflects the album’s main theme: the phenomenon of lost love. Eleven tracks include six tunes from the Great American Songbook, four impressive originals by Arthur himself, endorsing the album’s main themes, and a Jobim classic Dindi. They are beautifully sung by an immaculate performer.
Eric Myers
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ROCK
The Boy Named If
Elvis Costello & The Imposters
EMI
On his 32nd solo release, there’s no faulting the sincerity of Elvis Costello. For 45 years the jangly British singer-songwriter has consistently kept his nose on the grindstone, producing new variations on his trademark new-wave pop/rock themes with admirable consistency, and his latest effort is sure to keep longstanding fans engaged, while potentially catching the eye of youths eager to see what all the fuss of their parents’ generation was. At 67, he exhibits the notion of ageing gracefully via the steady (albeit slightly bloated) ballads Most Beautiful Mistake and Paint The Red Roses Blue. But Costello is at his best when he throws caution to the wind, evidenced by neo-Britpop cut The Difference and ragtime highlight The Man You Love To Hate. Not all 13 tracks land on target: songs like Penelope Halfpenny and What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love are probably better left in his substantial archives. When Costello is on song, however, he remains one of the great songwriters of modern times.
Alasdair Belling
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