Sal Kimber & The Rollin’ Wheel
Sal Kimber & The Rollin’ Wheel
Vitamin
Not since Mia Dyson first burst – gritty and real – onto the Australian underground roots music scene have we seen anyone of the calibre, of the snake-shimmer-soul of Sal Kimber and this is a goddamn fact. Possessed of a voice which not only raises the dead but reinvigorates their very loins, Kimber has slowly but surely been growing, emerging, honing her songwriting skill – already razor sharp – whipping the Rollin’ Wheel into a deep, dark, country frenzy, the likes of which are few and far between my friends, make no mistake about that.
Here, Kimber and the Wheel unleash their second full-length effort (the first with this particular band actually), one that’s been a while in coming, but one which makes no apologies, one which just exists in its own murky world of song and story, of melancholy and joy. Not only that, but Sal Kimber & The Rollin’ Wheel heralds, to my mind, the coming of our next roots star – this is a record that drips with sensuality, it reeks of the dirt and the grime that epitomises country music, the sweat and shimmy of old time soul, the power of rock ‘n’ roll, all encased within the inherent realism of an Australian artist singing from the heart like she knows no other way.
And therein lies the reason why this eponymous record is so good – whether ensconced within the darkness of ‘Rocking Chair’, the boogie shimmer of ‘Do Right’ or the reticent, shy and retiring ‘Your Town’, you believe what you’re hearing, because Kimber believes what she’s singing. It’s all well and good to pen a handy song and have the instrumental chops to back it up (as Kimber does, and indeed, as her whole band do in spades), but it’s another to take your listener to the same place you are, whilst up on the stage or in the studio, laying the song in question down. There is absolutely no doubt that there’s more to come from Kimber and The Rollin’ Wheel – the only question is, how soon do we get to hear it?
Samuel J. Fell
Sal Kimber & the Rollin' Wheel is available now through Vitamin
Florence + the Machine
Ceremonials
Island
Florence Welch wowed audiences the world over with her unique, slightly off-kilter take on everything in 2009 with debut album Lungs – now she returns with heavier, throbbing drumbeats, higher soaring vocals and an even more epic aesthetic on new album, Ceremonials. This time around Florence + her music-making Machine have come down even more firmly on the soul side of the enchanting, soul-filled rock cum baroque pop that heaped acclaim, both critical and contemporary, on Lungs. But Ceremonials features a more definitive sound, more unified themes and fewer distractions from the grandiose elements of her music. The growth and maturity Welch has obtained in her two years of live performance and travel is immediately apparent; thematically, there’s a definite undercurrent to the songs, along with a focus on various aspects of her relationships with everything from her grandmother to the English language.
But, like Lungs, the British singing sensation’s latest album carries on the tradition of haunting melodies and heavy drumming. Tracks such as ‘Leave My Body’, ‘Heartlines’ and ‘No Light, No Light’ are reminiscent of the darker pieces on the first album (‘Howl’, ‘Rabbit Heart’, ‘Blinding’, ‘Drumming Song’). While tracks like ‘Breaking Down’ and ‘Seven Devils’ run more slowly (though no less heavily), in the vein of ‘I’m Not Calling You A Liar’ and ‘Cosmic Love’. There are also a few tracks with a triumphant, celebratory tone similar to ‘Hurricane Drunk’ and ‘You’ve Got The Love’ such as ‘All This And Heaven Too’ and single ‘Shake It Out’.
In trademark style, many of the more joyous songs contrast the uplifting musical tone with darker lyrics such as ‘I’m gonna drink myself to death’ and ‘All of the ghouls come out to play’. In fact ,all the lyrics on Ceremonials echo the dark, vivid imagery and metaphor of the first album. Beautifully crafted phrases such as ‘a cathedral where you cannot breathe’ and ‘I know it’ll have to drown me before it can breathe easy’ fill the songs with a kind of melancholy passion which Welch’s voice carries easily.
However, missing from Ceremonials are the lighter, more rock-based tracks that featured on Lungs such as ‘Kiss With A Fist’ and ‘Girl With One Eye’. The softer acoustic touch leant by ‘My Boy Builds Coffins’ is also absent (although lovely acoustic covers of several of the songs are available on the dual-disc edition). It seems a shame to lose the variety of the first album, which gave Welch a chance to show off her flexibility as a vocalist, but the sacrifice is the price for the confirmation of Welch’s individual sound that Ceremonials brings.
Overall the album is a resounding success. It supplies a sense of intimacy with the thoughts of the artist and adds a sense of unique wonder to the everyday.
Ellen MacColl
Ceremonials is available now through Island / Universal
Tex Perkins And The Band Of Gold
Tex Perkins And The Band Of Gold
Independent / Universal
A few months ago, fighting off a stifling hangover, I sat at the pub in Brunswick Heads and interviewed an ambivalent Tex Perkins. Ostensibly, our chat was centred around the new Dark Horses record, their first in around eight years, but the undisputed king of scruffy-as-fuck Australian rock ‘n’ roll let it slip that he was working on an album of country covers, something we talked about briefly, but ultimately shrugged off in favour of the Horses.
Well, only a short time later, Perkins has made good his promise and here we have the aforementioned country covers record, in all its dark, mahogany glory. For this isn’t your run-of-the-mill covers record, this is an investment on the part of Perkins and his Band Of Gold, a true tribute, a crew mining songs which mean something – as much now as they did when first written.
For the best part of 2010, our man Perkins portrayed the Man In Black Himself, Johnny Cash, in the aptly named stage show, The Man In Black. It was during this highly successful production that Perkins came across the musos who would become The Band Of Gold, and also here that he rediscovered, it seems, his love of real, dark, anguished and painful country music. They enjoyed themselves so much, we now have this record, and I’m telling you right here, that this is a very good thing indeed.
With vocal help from Rachael Tidd, Perkins and his Band Of Gold idle effortlessly through a slew of classic old songs – Merle Haggard’s ‘Silver Wings’ and ‘It’s Not Love’; Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ and ‘I’d Rather Be Sorry’; Porter Wagoner’s ‘Lonely Coming Down’ and Utah Phillips’ ‘Rock Salt And Nails’, amongst others, and the results are truly sublime. Think about it – can you imagine anyone on the Australian scene today, doing as much justice to these dusty, parched and cracked old songs as Tex Perkins? The man’s voice is made for this sort of stuff, and the fact The Band Of Gold are all crack musos in their own right, just makes it all the better. This one is a gem, a diamond in the rough, and truth be told, one of the best things Perkins has recorded in the past five or six years, hands down.
Samuel J. Fell
Tex Perkins And The Band Of Gold is available now independently and through Universal
Lanie Lane
To The Horses
Ivy League
From an imagined luau in southwest Chicago – ukulele mixing effortlessly with rockabilly twang – combining blues sensibility and ‘50s chic with an eye on the past and no more than a passing interest in what’s happening now, Lanie Lane steps elegantly into the spotlight. Springing seemingly from nowhere, Lane has made 2011 her own: a BDO appearance, guest vocal spot on You Am I’s ‘Trigger Finger’, national support for Justin Townes Earl, a collaboration and tour with Clare Bowditch and recording time with Jack White in the US – the only thing missing thus far, is a record. Enter To The Horses.
Whether flirting harmlessly with the silly and left-of-centre (‘Bang Bang’, with its thumping double-bass line and ringing “Bang, bang, bang-idy bang bang” chorus lyric) or pouring her heart out (the title track, with its mournful delivery and lyrics like, “I’m going to the horses, if you can’t catch me then just give up”), Lanie Lane has proven that the growing interest she’s been receiving over the past 12 months is justified. For this is a record that fairly reeks of poise and musical nous, a record that oozes age and experience and yet has been created by a young woman with barely neither. Lane seems (in dress and appearance as well as in a musical sense) to have stepped from another time, somewhere where she’s already been doing this for an age and it’s old hat and she could do it whenever she wanted.
Whilst the two tracks she recorded earlier this year with White (‘Ain’t Hungry’ and ‘My Man’) aren’t represented on To The Horses, what is, is a step up; there’s nothing over the top, there’s nothing here that seems forced, there’s nothing that makes you think this is merely an act, a shtick. It’s simple, soulful music from another time re-crafted into something which, interesting enough, makes perfect sense in this electronic, shot-attention-spanned universe of ours.
If you were to name a weakness, To The Horses is a little lacking in cohesion, containing as it does a number of genres worked together – the aforementioned rockabilly, lilting Hawaiian folk, blues, swing, a little jazz, some surf and spaghetti western – which sometimes serves to overwhelm, but it’s only fleeting. Because then you get carried away on Lane’s voice, strong and raw with the occasional hint of female vulnerability – “Don’t cry, that’s below you, oh well, that’s what you get, for fallin’ in love with a cowboy” she sings on ‘That’s What You Get’, which is also another example of the tongue-in-cheek stories she tells throughout the record, songs like the bopping and bouncing ‘Betty Baby’ (She’s just a guitar baby”) and the junky and sultry ‘What Do I Do’.
With To The Horses, Lanie Lane has proven she’s worth the ‘hype’. She’s proven she can write seriously and in fun. She’s proven she can take ‘old music’ and turn it into something fresh and vibrant and she’s proven she’s a radiant streak of light, wrought upon the darkening roots scene in this country. A fine record, a fine debut to be sure.
B.F. Pierce
To The Horses is available now through Ivy League.