STACK April 2017 Issue 150

82 / 97

16 APRIL 2017
visit MUSIC REVIEWS
Mark Seymour And The
Undertow Roll Back The
Stone: 1985 - 2016
Mark Seymour has now been
a solo artist longer than his
duration as frontman of Hunters
& Collectors. To celebrate, he’s
releasing this live anthology,
recorded over three nights in
Melbourne. His solo band is aptly
named: there’s an understated
nature to the Undertow; they
slowly drag you under. Conversely,
there wasn’t a lot of subtlety to
Hunters & Collectors, a band that
gleefully poked you in the chest.
This record deftly mixes tracks
from both, with 14 solo songs and
10 Hunnas classics. Seymour’s
solo debut, King Without A Clue, is
unfairly overlooked, but the song
selection is strong, showcasing a
songwriter who’s simply getting
better with age.
(Liberation) Jeff Jenkins
Colin Hay
Fierce Mercy
“I would give up anything to not remember
everything,” Colin Hay sings on his 13th solo album.
What a long, strange trip it’s been for Hay, whose
new record actually includes a song called I’m
Going To Get You Stoned. He went from Scotland
to Australia and then the top of the US charts with
Men At Work, but mega success was followed by mega indifference – Hay
even called one of his albums Peaks & Valleys (“Every artist has peaks
and valleys,” a major music lawyer told him after his first solo album
flopped. “You’re in a f-cking big valley.”). Creatively, though, Hay has never
slipped, and Fierce Mercy is another fine record, and perhaps his most
musically adventurous since his solo debut 30 years ago. I’mWalking Here
incorporates a rap; a horn solo punctuates She Was The Love Of Mine;
chiming piano introduces the gorgeous A Thousand Million Reasons;
strings send Secret Love soaring; and Blue Bay Moon is a lovely country
excursion. Hay is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Neil Finn and
Paul Kelly, but he should be – he’s one of the greats. “When life has no
certainty,” he concludes, “I stick to the melody.”
(Compass Records/Sony) Jeff Jenkins
James Blunt The Afterlove
The ubiquity of You’re Beautiful
may have turned James Blunt into
a cheap punchline in the mid-
aughts, but like the creators of
Mmmbop still selling out venues
seven albums later, Blunt remains
undeterred. Four albums in,
Blunt’s balladry lies somewhere
between The Chainsmokers and
fun., leading to a varied record
that hits all of contemporary pop’s
high notes: singalong anthems
(Bartender), tropical house
(Lose My Number), Kavinsky-ish
synthwave (California), and more
traditional fingerpicking softness
(Time Of Our Lives). The Afterlove
might not break the avant-garde,
but it proves that James Blunt is
a polished student of pop, and is
much more than just one song.
(Warner) Jake Cleland
Tina Arena
Greatest Hits And
Interpretations
She’s Tiny no more. What a career
Tina Arena has had, from child
star to top 40 hits in the US and
UK, and top 10 albums in France.
Forty years after her first album
(Tiny Tina and Little John, with
Young Talent Time co-star Johnny
Bowles), Arena has issued this
compelling career anthology. Disc
one, titled Retrospective, features
17 hits, from the deliciously
cheesy I Need Your Body to the
classy I Want To Love You. Disc
two, Reimagine, includes Sorrento
Moon as a duet with Dannii
Minogue, plus an eclectic array
of artists covering Arena’s songs
including Jimmy Barnes and Kate
Miller-Heidke, as well as a new
cover of INXS’s Never Tear Us
Apart. Glorious.
(EMI) Jeff Jenkins
Zara Larsson So Good
Her voice has been compared to
Rihanna and her personality to Lily
Allen. She has endless talent and
confidence coming out of her butt,
and she’s only 19 years old. Having
won an Australia’s Got Talent -
style competition in her home
country of Sweden in 2008 (aged
10), Larsson shot to international
fame in 2015 with Lush Life, the
first single from So Good to be
unleashed. Two years and four
smash singles later, Larsson
presents her buoyant sophomore
album, lovingly crafted for sweet-
hearted pop lovers. Layers upon
sumptuous layers of synth,
beats and voice drown out life’s
problems in this shiny, ebullient,
and perfectly-titled release.
(Epic/Sony) Savannah Douglas
Drake More Life
Drake’s globetrotting influences on his
seventh solo LP jump from London
grime and Atlanta trap to hometown
Toronto rap, Caribbean dancehall and
Afrobeat. On paper, that mix sounds
like a hot mess, but the resulting 22
tracks are a surprise-filled playlist to
help us reluctantly wave goodbye
to summer. More Life has the pop
moments that worked on Views and
the rap aggression of If You’re Reading
This You’re Too Late, with the brilliant
bars and songwriting of Hold On
We’re Coming Home.
Young Thug and Kanye West steal the
show in their verses on Sacrifices
and Glow respectively, and Drizzy’s
take on grime traditions in No Long
Talk and KMT are going to polarise a
lot of people. Personally, I think it’s
refreshing. If Drake’s purpose for this
project was to prove he can do it all,
he has succeeded. If his purpose
was to sell another couple of million
records, he will succeed there too.
(Universal)Tim Lambert
Betty Who
The Valley
Betty Who's biography reads: “I’d
just like to make people dance."
The Australian cellist turned
pop starlet – née Jessica Anne
Newham – has achieved that goal
with poise and turned our legs
to jelly in the process, bringing
an attitude wrapped in a candy-
scented packet that’s sometimes
sweet, sometimes sour. From
its sombre opening of the titular
track right through to her beautiful
junglesque rendition of Donna
Lewis’ ‘90s hit I Love You Always
Forever, The Valley pops. Polished
high notes and relishable rhythms
have a Katy Perry familiarity, while
the melodies make you want to
sing along even when you’ve never
heard them before.
(Sony) Savannah Douglas