Kylie Minogue shakes it loose all over again on Tension II
Album No. 17 has some great and euphoric moments, but there’s nothing quite as arresting as Minogue’s 2023 career-redefining hit Padam Padam here — granted, it’s a high bar.
Album reviews for week of October 25 2024:
POP
Tension II
Kylie Minogue
Mushroom Music
If you had been asked at the start of 2023 about which artists would come to define the year in music, there’s little to no chance you would have said Kylie Minogue. That’s not a slight on our homegrown princess of pop, of course, who has been releasing era-defining records since the 1980s and sold well over 80 million records worldwide. But even the most devoted Minogue fan couldn’t have predicted the renaissance brought about by the globe-conquering single Padam Padam. Released as a lead-in to her album Tension, Padam Padam’s liquidy, snaking synths and deliciously sexy club chorus became the defining sounds of the year, recreated in TikTok dances hundreds of thousands of times over. Ringing through every club in the world, it’s now one of Minogue’s best-performing singles in a career littered with megahits. To cap it off, she deservedly took home the Grammy Award for best pop dance recording – her first Grammy win in two decades. Tension, the album it was carved from, was acclaimed as one of her best records in years, a joyful and liberated return to the club. Previous albums Golden (2018) and Disco (2020) had their fun moments, but Tension felt like Kylie shaking it all loose.
The sequel Tension II has now arrived, and as the name implies it’s still firmly spinning on the dancefloor of those neon-lit clubs. Minogue has said it wasn’t intended to be a sequel at all – rather, the initial idea was to do the commonplace record industry thing and repackage the original album as a deluxe version with some new tracks thrown in. But given the reaction to Tension and the doors that had flown open in its wake, Minogue took the opportunity and ran with it. Album No. 17 has some great and euphoric moments. Lights Camera Action is Euro house at full throttle; Taboo tips its hat to ABBA and Voulez Vous, and Dance to the Music is deeply indebted to Daft Punk and Giorgio Moroder. The pulsing Diamonds is the clear standout here, while others were probably better left on the cutting room floor. All of Minogue’s 2024 collaborations are included in the tracklist, most notably The Blessed Madonna team-up, The Edge of Saturday Night. One of the world’s most respected DJs and producers, The Blessed Madonna’s punchy production underlines Kylie’s dramatic vocal — another reminder that she’s the most confident when commanding the dancefloor. There’s no moment as arresting as Padam Padam here — granted, it’s a high bar. And as you would expect from an album that seemed cobbled together on the run, Tension II is patchy. Perhaps that extended deluxe version, rather than a full album, might have been the better idea all along.
Jules LeFevre
ROCK
No Name
Jack White
Third Man Records
In the information age, Jack White still maintains the element of surprise. The Detroit native turns up on a Beyonce record, or jams with A Tribe Called Quest, just because he can. He books an upcoming show at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel, with a capacity of hundreds, when he usually plays to thousands. And yes, he records his sixth album and stealthily lets it loose to unsuspecting fans via white-label vinyl distributed with orders from his record label, Third Man. No Name arrived with zero fanfare or promo, and perhaps it’s because of its weightless, expectation-free existence that it makes such an impact. This is a record that rocks and rolls like White did in the heyday of the band that made him a household name, The White Stripes. Bombing Out is the rawest, hardest song he’s made in a quarter century, while That’s How I’m Feeling is moshpit-ready and Missionary is all high kicks and heavy riffs. It’s handily his best since his 2012 solo debut Blunderbuss; maybe even since the Stripes’ 2007 farewell LP Icky Thump. What’s in a name, anyway?
David James Young
INDIE POP/FUNK
Paradise State of Mind
Foster the People
Atlantic
Foster the People has always been so much more than the indie band with that one song you always hear – ironically – at school discos (Pumped Up Kicks, a 2010 hit). The US act has delved into dream pop, and psychedelic rock, and here on its fourth album the group has elected for ‘space disco’. Sole remaining founding member Mark Foster hasn’t quite gone full Jay Kay here, but there’s no denying a certain Jamiroquai flavour sprinkled over Lost in Space and Let Go, while Sometimes I Want To Be Bad and Low Vibrations trade the acid jazz for a more relaxed approach, which still makes you want to move. However, Paradise State of Mind will ultimately succeed or fail based on its poppiness – and while it mostly succeeds, cuts such as Glitchzig and The Holy Shangri-La both overstay their welcome and don’t offer up the same hooks as the brilliant title track. At other points the experimentation allows the songs to get away a little bit: an atonal trumpet solo in the aforementioned Glitchzig and the bizarre vocoder-led closing slow burn A Diamond To Be Born are the chief offenders. Overall, though, this is a strong return to form from the apparent “one-hit wonders”.
Alasdair Belling
JAZZ
The Journeyman Suite
AR Big Band & String Quartet
ABC Jazz
Sydney-based composer and arranger Andrew Robertson has here produced a highly innovative work of 51 minutes for 20 musicians: a 16-piece jazz big band with four each in the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and rhythm sections, plus a string quartet. In a thumbnail review we can’t list all 24 musicians. Two things make this album unusually distinctive: first, the tight writing whereby Robertson adroitly converts the band into a compact expression of his particular musical vision; and second, using the standard string quartet (two violins, viola & cello) in such a way that its playing exists seamlessly as part of the band, and never sounds intrusive. The Journeyman Suite is the AR Big Band’s debut album, inspired by Robertson’s own journey as a working musician, from youthful beginnings to acceptance in the music community, and to a position of leadership while always remaining in the background behind the ticket-selling artist out the front. There are some lovely improvisations here, but I was mostly fascinated by the brilliantly written figures played underneath those solos. Those figures are indeed something to behold.
Eric Myers
SOUL/FOLK
Long Way Home
Ray LaMontagne
Liula Records/Thirty Tigers
After achieving mainstream success with his Grammy-winning 2010 album God Willin’, US troubadour Ray LaMontagne flirted with ‘60s psychedelia before returning to his original muse, ‘70s folk-rock, with 2020’s Monovision. That welcome move is consolidated on his ninth album, Long Way Home, where once again LaMontagne (guitars, organ, harmonica and bass) opts to work with just a producer and engineer in his home studio rather than enlist his former touring band. That said, there are guest musicians on Long Way Home who add the special sauce, including backup singers the Secret Sisters and Carl Broemel (pedal steel on Wouldn’t Change a Thing). LaMontagne, whose stunning voice is an amalgam of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Rick Danko, James Taylor and British soul singer James Morrison, unashamedly betrays his influences, nor is he averse to sly humour: “I’m back in the ring to take another swing,” he sings on Wouldn’t Change a Thing, a clear nod to AC/DC, while his harmonica intro to the Laurel Canyon-drenched And They Called Her California signals a virtual parody of Neil Young. Speaking of: The Way Things Are is pure Deja Vu-era CSNY.
Phil Stafford
Album reviews for week of October 18 2024:
ELECTRONIC
Inhale/Exhale
Rufus Du Sol
Rose Avenue/Warner Music Australia
By announcing an ‘‘intimate’’ live performance on Sydney Harbour to launch its fifth album, Rufus Du Sol couldn’t have escaped the irony. Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George and James Hunt have championed emotive and heartfelt electronic musical connection since breaking out with debut album Atlas (2013), but the trio’s global success since has made the idea of smaller performances – outside of occasional DJ sets – increasingly fanciful. And so at sunset last Thursday, about 3000 fans clamoured around the Botanic Gardens, on boats on the harbour, to catch a glimpse of a hometown group that now sells out famed venues like Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, and which is headlining South America’s Lollapalooza festival next year. Add multiple Grammy nominations – and one win, in 2022, for Best Dance/Electronic Recording for the ‘‘heavy but hopeful’’ Alive – and Rufus Du Sol now sits alongside the likes of Flume, Alison Wonderland and Cut Copy as one of Australia’s truly world-beating electronic exports. From early singles like Desert Night and the near-10-minute classic that is Innerbloom, to Treat You Better and gems like Surrender – the spine-tingling title track to 2021’s fourth album – the trio’s musical output has steadily, methodically evolved alongside its black-clad aesthetic and blistering live shows. On Inhale/Exhale, Lindqvist, George and Hunt appear more assured, focused and committed than ever – to more of the same.
That’s not a dig; the album is sonically rich, the songwriting is strong, and Lindqvist’s raspy pipes continue to enthral. But much of the album sounds exactly as rusted-on fans would hope; any recalibration of what is obviously a tried-and-true formula isn’t immediately apparent. And that’s OK. There is a sense of restless creative energy pulsing throughout; tempos rise and fall, and synth lines pierce with a razor sharpness that, when combined with big, rumbling beats and yearning vocals covering themes of love, heartbreak, despair and euphoria, make for a captivating listen. Opener Inhale builds atop moody, swirling production, hazy synths and Lindqvist’s vocal promising “brighter days to come”; but the drop never arrives, instead morphing into the thumping, ominous Lately. Music Is Better hits right where it should, celebrating music’s connective nature via Hunt’s crisp drums and a euphoric chorus. Pressure, meanwhile, strikes a defiant tone as Lindqvist promises “you’ll never break me down” amid snarling, distorted synths and a mid-tempo, chugging beat. New York is one of a handful of slower, contemplative numbers that eschew dancefloor kick, propelled by a restrained, heartbeat-like thump and Lindqvist’s longing, alongside rich backing vocals, to be taken “back where I belong, back into your arms”. Closer Exhale brings the sensory loop full circle as his high-pitched vocal spars with delicate keys. It’s a tune dripping with intimacy, one perhaps destined to find greatness on big stages. As for any more ‘intimate’ performances, well, their just-announced Australian tour for November 2025 suggests you shouldn’t hold your breath.
Tim McNamara
COUNTRY
Born on the Road
Two Tone Pony
Checked Label
A half-century before “nepo babies” entered the cultural lexicon, David Kirkpatrick grew up travelling around Australia with the royal couple of country music: his parents, Slim Dusty and Anne Kirkpatrick. It’s to his credit he didn’t cash in on these credentials until later on in his adult life but, as this debut from his band, Two Tone Pony, attests, good graces only get you so far. Born on the Road is a polite morning-tea affair of a country album; full of Hallmark card lyrics, basic acoustic strumming and faint attempts at rollicking backbeats – as though drummer Greg Richardson is barricaded behind walls of Plexiglas lest he busts a nearby hearing aid. Across 12 songs and 50 minutes, Kirkpatrick has inherited his parents’ subject matter of rural travelling and outback life, but not either one’s award-winning ability to write about them with detail, intrigue or even memorable choruses. Neither he nor co-frontman Ian Rhodes can carry much of a tune, either. When it comes to Born on the Road, the lights on the hill are on – but nobody’s home.
David James Young
CLASSICAL
Boccherini Chamber Works for Flute
Sally Walker
Avie
The works of Italian-Spanish composer Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) are synonymous with the most stylish features of late 18th-century music, often ornamented with exquisite but purposeful filigree. Best known these days for his works for the cello, his own instrument, Boccherini also composed some deal of music for the flute. Canberra-based performer and scholar Sally Walker has assembled some eight chamber works around the flute, totalling almost 100 minutes spread across a double album. All were recorded in the sparkling acoustics of the new Baroque Hall in North Adelaide in January 2023. The result is sheer delight. This music bustles along, prancing and dancing with poise and vigour. The performances of Walker and her octet are almost intoxicating in vitality and absolute unanimity, alternating between refined elegance, intimate beauty and occasional cheekiness. A favourite composer of mine for decades, Boccherini binds the rococo and the early classical, and could do with a revival in this country. Walker’s enthusiasm and her inspirational performances would be a welcome start to that.
Vincent Plush
AMERICANA
The Four Seasons
Henry Wagons
Cheatin’ Hearts Records
There are precious few who have come to embody the gloriously esoteric nature of “cosmic country” as has Henry Wagons over the years. He’s a skilled blender of a genre as old as the hills, with swathes of western noir and Australian hillbilly cheek, the recipe to which he’s expanded with latest cut The Four Seasons. Interspersed with spaghetti western-infused instrumental shorts denoting said seasons – beginning with the shimmering and dusty Summer, culminating in the jaunty and horn-laden Spring – the album evokes images of vast and calcareous red earth landscapes while hugging one close and offering comfort in a world where, in Wagons’ own words: “Everything around you is going downhill, fast.” Elements of Louisiana swamp pop permeate My Lover My Companion; Hawaiian-style steel defines What You Need; an almost ‘60s pop feel embraces Park At the Station. But it’s his country roots that emerge strongest: duetting on a handful of songs with Queenie – Big City Blues, conjuring images of Jon Spencer “gone country” is the standout, their harmonies reminiscent of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn – Wagons stretches out over the album’s 14 songs. Expansive is indeed the keyword here, on a truly cosmic record.
Samuel J. Fell
ALTERNATIVE ROCK
Aghori Mhori Mei
The Smashing Pumpkins
Martha’s Music / Thirty Tigers
Cards on the table: this is the best Smashing Pumpkins record released in the past decade. It’s also not a good record. But credit where credit is due: Billy Corgan, the US band’s enigmatic frontman, has remained one of the most prolific “legacy songwriters” of the 21st century. It’s only been 18 months since the band’s indigestible triple-LP Atum landed, but Corgan is ready to go again, and he proudly has returned to the well of the band’s trademark alt-metal/grunge-pop sound. The result has moments of promise; the opening gambit, Eden, stokes a vicious collection of riffs, while Goeth the Fall does sound pleasingly Siamese Dream-esque. Sadly, these moments of nostalgic warmth are ruined by more of the band’s dreaded love for cheap-sounding synths — Pentecost is particularly phoned in — and, quite frankly, the worst vocal performance of Corgan’s career. Gone is any sense of malice behind his trademark snarl, replaced by out-of-tune wailing that even the most aggressive James Iha tone or the most dexterous Jimmy Chamberlin drum fill can’t disguise. Corgan has said that with this release the band has attempted to “move forward by looking back”. Looking back while moving forward can make you trip and fall, though, as has happened here.
Alasdair Belling
