Album review: Judicious light and shade on Mark Seymour’s The Boxer
Backed by his band The Undertow, Mark Seymour is in career-best form vocally, reaching for the high notes and effortlessly pulling them down where once he might have struggled.
Album reviews for week of May 10 2024:
ROCK
The Boxer
Mark Seymour & The Undertow
Bloodlines/Mushroom
It’s the mid-1980s, and a blue worker’s singlet-clad Mark Seymour stands on stage in front of his six-piece band, Hunters & Collectors, leading the chorus of a kiss-off song called Say Goodbye. A thousand sweaty punters, most of them male, are bellowing Seymour’s words right back at him as they punch the air in time with the Hunters’ juggernaut rhythm section: “You don’t make me feel like I’m a woman any more!” It’s an ironic image, to say the least, as the key line of the song belongs to its female protagonist, who’s sick to death of waiting at home while her soon-to-be-ex spends time he could be sharing with her on the road with a rock ’n’ roll band – the ultimate boys’ club. Almost 40 years on, Seymour stands amid the ruins of another long-term relationship, though this time he’s documenting effect rather than cause. Track three of The Boxer, Seymour’s 11th solo album with or without his post-Hunters outfit, The Undertow, revisits the moment his most recent ex called time on their 30-year marriage. “Never saw it coming, but it blew right through my heart,” Seymour sings on She Burned Her Bridges Down. It’s one of a handful of songs on The Boxer wherein Seymour, 67, confronts a late-midlife crisis and rediscovers his self-respect.
The opening title track — ostensibly about a female boxer who also happens to be Seymour’s trainer in the pugilist’s art he took up in the wake of his personal implosion — is a thinly veiled allegory of its instigator. On the crest of a swelling chorus, Seymour once again takes the female perspective, singing: “She gotta do what a girl’s gotta do ... She said, ‘I gotta roll with the punches / ’cos I’ve got fighting in my blood’.” With the addition of new keys player Cameron Bruce, augmenting longtime guitarist/producer Cameron McKenzie, bassist John Favaro and drummer Peter Maslen, the Undertow sheds judicious light and shade and takes its singular cues in all the right places. McKenzie’s solos on Sleeping Dogs, Cherry Red and Brother are studies in contrast, while the other Cameron (Bruce) colours the arrangements with organ, piano and strings. Vocally, Seymour is in career-best form, reaching for the high notes and effortlessly pulling them down where once he might have struggled. He even waxes country on the album’s only cover, a swaggering take on the late John Prine’s She Is My Everything. Its inclusion finds the singer flexing a rarely displayed muscle – humour – in carrying off lines like: “She goes everywhere / From Copenhagen to makin’ eggs and bacon down in Jackson Square”.
Phil Stafford
RAP-ROCK
Humble As The Sun
Bob Vylan
Ghost Theatre
Staunchly independent and fiercely political, British punk duo Bob Vylan have quickly gone from complete unknowns to rolling stones. Their unapologetic, acerbic blend of hip-hop and rock has rattled cages, ultimately leading to a top 20 chart placement with their 2022 debut The Price of Life. Its follow-up largely picks up where that left off: acidic, snarky social commentary, simultaneously exerting cheery nihilism and radical positivity. Dream Big hooks a defiant battle-cry for the youth of today, complete with children’s backing vocals, while He’s A Man taunts toxic masculinity and Hunger Games runs down the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. It’s largely variations on a theme, which admittedly can wear listeners down, even with a 35-minute runtime. Still, there’s enough new blood here to keep hearts pumping. Reign, for instance, wallops big-beat into a trap switch-up to full effect, with some of the record’s spiciest lyrics sprinkled on top. Elsewhere, the duo flip Fatboy Slim’s classic Right Here, Right Now into their proverbial mosh-pit with a 21st-century makeover on Right Here. There’s simply no blocking this shine.
David James Young
JAZZ
Cinematic Light Orchestra
Callum Allardice
Earshift Music
Apparently a celebrated guitarist in New Zealand, Callum Allardice has enough clout to secure support from arts funding body Creative NZ for what is apparently a lavish project. Seven tracks, composed and arranged by Allardice, are performed by an orthodox big band (five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, a four-piece rhythm section and a 10-piece string section). It’s a massive assemblage of forces. Allardice is such an excellent player, with a lovely singing sound on guitar, that I suspect he could carry the album simply with the rhythm section only. His writing is highly melodic and frequently stirring, but he sounds to my ears like an orchestrator who has never heard the works of, say, Quincy Jones, let alone Carla Bley. Compared to the highly innovative big band writing now coming out of Australia – think Vanessa Perica (Melbourne), and Jeremy Rose (Sydney), both writing art music – Allardice’s musical vision is largely restricted to the now somewhat old-fashioned genre jazz/rock fusion.
Eric Myers
ROCK
All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade
The Libertines
EMI
It’d be only fair to have counted The Libertines out a long time ago, thanks to internal and external strife alike. But the London quartet’s fourth album – and first in almost a decade – turns out to be a surprisingly effective romp. Packing 11 songs in under 40 minutes, the record moves fast and remains light on its feet, often echoing the dishevelled charisma of the band’s classic 2002 debut Up the Bracket. The momentum may dip in places after mouthy opener Run Run Run, but that’s partly to allow for Stones-y detours (Mustangs), wry global commentary (Merry Old England), Dixieland horns (Baron’s Claw) and a Clash-esque reggae groove (Be Young). Most interesting of all is Night of the Hunter, a drolly drawled number that mingles spaghetti western motifs with flashes of both the titular Robert Mitchum movie and more modern acts of defiance. And lest we think of The Libertines purely as some scrappy whirlwind, Man With the Melody and Songs They Never Play on the Radio are ballads of penetrating tenderness.
Doug Wallen
POP
I’m Doing It Again Baby!
Girl In Red
Columbia/Sony
Norway’s Marie Ulven, who performs as Girl In Red, became the kind of success story the music industry loves after self-releasing her first two EPs. Recorded in her bedroom, the twin set introduced her acerbic and astute discussion of mental health and queer longing in an irresistible lo-fi package that made her a TikTok smash. One full-length and a major label deal later, there’s not much left of the Ulven who once warbled “come lie with my bones” to her love interest, replaced with a glossy sheen that renders her mostly indiscernible from her peers. That’s not to say the songs aren’t accomplished, but they’re also largely unmemorable. With its sweeping arrangements and pedestrian lyrics, Too Much sounds like it could have been written for anyone, while Ugly Side is a cynical attempt at channelling a bass-shattering Billie Eilish. The best track here, You Need Me Now?, is also the one that most nakedly states its intentions, pulling in “It girl” of the moment, Sabrina Carpenter, for a fresh take on the Kelly Clarkson school of fuzzy, guitar-driven pop.
Jonathan Seidler
Album reviews for week of May 3 2024:
ROCK
Dark Matter
Pearl Jam
Monkeywrench/Republic
The role of the producer as it stands in 2024 is less collaborator and more video-game cheat code. Want to prove your street cred? Hire Rick Rubin. Indie cred? Aaron Dessner. Pristine pop-punk reinvention? Travis Barker. Ascending to the upper echelon of pop culture? Jack Antonoff. Enter Andrew Watt, pop wunderkind turned veteran whisperer. After cutting his teeth making platinum-sellers for Post Malone and Justin Bieber, Watt expanded his repertoire into acts such as Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop – by proxy, giving these decades-old voices a new lease on life. His latest task is Pearl Jam’s second chance at a 2020s comeback, after the Seattle rock legends’ pandemic effort Gigaton circumstantially flew under the radar, chiefly due to timing: it was released on March 27, 2020, just a couple of weeks into many nations’ Covid lockdowns, ours included. You might be wondering why Watt has led discussion here, rather than the quintet and its songs, and the answer is simple: there’s simply more to talk about. With every studio album, the divide between Pearl Jam’s halcyon days and its present grows larger. At some point during the 2000s, it hit a certain gear and largely carried on its journey on cruise control. It’s still been capable of great songs (2009’s The Fixer, 2013’s Mind Your Manners, 2020’s Dance Of The Clairvoyants), but only when it lights the fire once more and pushes beyond middle-aged complacency.
Hiring Watt, on paper, was Pearl Jam’s solution. What results is the equivalent of a dog running freely off its leash, only to discover it’s fenced in a backyard. It’s free to roam, yes, but only to a point. Watt allows the band to rock out on cuts like the frenetic Running, the charged React, Respond and the head-nodding title track. It almost feels as though the Pearl Jam of old is peering through the plexiglass. For each of these moments, however, the band is reined in once again to tackle misguided balladry such as the sluggish six-minute Upper Hand and the faux-country of Something Special – the latter of which sees vocalist Eddie Vedder blend as comfortably into a saloon as Michael J. Fox circa Back To The Future III. Much like Watt’s much-publicised work on last year’s Rolling Stones album, Dark Matter reveals an ugliness to the producer’s method. He’s not working to keep these acts fresh or relevant – he’s working to simply keep them alive. Put it this way: next to nothing heard here will keep punters from their bathroom break on Pearl Jam’s next world tour, which is due to hit our shores in November. More than anything else, Dark Matter feels like obligation over effort.
David James Young
ALTERNATIVE BLUES/ROCK
Ohio Players
The Black Keys
Easy Eye Sound/Nonesuch Records
Thirteen years on from the release of their “one-hit wonder” single, Lonely Boy, Ohio blues experimentalists The Black Keys continue to move further out of their one-off pop hit’s shadow, keeping things fresh and ambitious as ever on their 12th outing. With cuts straddling alternative rock, old-school soul and even the odd foray into West Coast hip-hop (Candy and Her Friends and Paper Crown), the duo — composed of singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney — take a “throw everything at the wall” approach here and, thankfully, a vast majority of it sticks. Fever Tree and Please Me (Til I’m Satisfied) are the closest to “classic Keys” this record gets, but entertaining forays like the funk of This Is Nowhere, and the Beatles worship of I Forgot To Be Your Lover will offer new delights for long-time listeners. The only fault here is the run time of 14 songs, which invariably runs the risk that some of the treasures on side B will be overlooked, such as the terrific closing number, Every Time You Leave. Album No.12 proves The Black Keys are both as prolific and as adventurous as ever.
Alasdair Belling
AMERICANA
Trail of Flowers
Sierra Ferrell
Rounder/Concord
With southern warmth and lack of pretension, West Virginia’s Sierra Ferrell has become the belle of the ball that is neo-traditionalist country. Her warbling vocal delivery and starry-eyed lyricism have garnered bonds within the music world both likely (Zach Bryan) and unlikely (Lana Del Rey), meaning more eyes are on her than ever before for her fourth album. Ferrell is certainly aware of this, but makes no play for the big-time here. It’s business as usual – and fair enough, given business is booming. As a songwriter, she knows how to play both sides of the coin to full effect: she’s a whimsical lover on I Could Drive You Crazy, but she’s also a vengeful murder-ballad ex just two tracks later on Rosemary. She rouses with fiddle-driven bluegrass on Fox Hunt, but she also turns to lovelorn AM radio on Why Haven’t You Loved Me Yet. No, Trail of Flowers is not revolutionary. It is, however, a literal revolution: the wheels keep on turning, leaving listeners satisfied with both the journey and the destination.
David James Young
EXPERIMENTAL
All Hits: Memories
Jim White
Drag City
Jim White has arguably been building up to a solo album for decades, after applying his expressive drumming to the likes of Bill Callahan and Cat Power, as well as his long-time gig with Melbourne-born instrumental veterans Dirty Three. Recent years have seen him flourish in duos with Cretan laouto player Giorgos Xylouris and American guitarist Marisa Anderson, respectively, and even this solo debut was co-produced by Fugazi guitarist Guy Picciotto. Most surprising is not the open clatter of Curtains or the jazzy cymbal shimmer of Long Assemblage, but that White has also turned his hand to keyboard instruments for the first time. And so the in-demand 62-year-old drummer has a whole new dimension to explore, resulting in the off-kilter yet oddly poppy Marketplace and the haloing ambience of Soft Material. While not quite as dramatic a pivot as US rapper Andre 3000 recently adopting the flute, it’s fascinating to hear how White maps out space with melodic colours suddenly in play. The majority of these tracks last less than two minutes, yet they gather together into a quiet showcase of remarkable intuition.
Doug Wallen
JAZZ
Dualling
austraLYSIS
Independent
Phil Slater’s trumpet improvisations are a thing of beauty, and an immensely attractive sound in Australian jazz. Same with Sandy Evans, playing tenor and soprano saxophones here with her customary flair. Such extraordinary musicians shine no matter what the context, and this album is no exception, where they are free to “dual” primarily with so-called electroacoustic sounds, which have been pre-prepared on computer by pianist/composer Roger Dean and Greg White (virtual bass and drums, and virtual strings). Those sounds could run from, say, gurgling or bubbling water, to electronic sounds one might hear on a smartphone, to Dean’s authoritative free improvisations on the grand piano. Sounds that might normally be considered non-musical are welcome, and serve the purpose of enlarging one’s appreciation of what constitutes sound. Hazel Smith (text) appears on one track. One can’t do justice to this lengthy album (76 minutes, 18 tracks) in a thumbnail review, but I certainly found Dualling the most thoughtful and convincing example of the improvised music genre I’ve heard for some time.
Eric Myers