Sauce

Kelly appears to be refining his art quite well with age (and gosh is he ageing), and I found this album to be quite engaging in parts. It’s hard to describe, but I love listening to those rare intense songs where you have the experience of physically consuming them. You witness the music and lyrics meld together, delicately and beautifully constructed, giving you a sense of fullness, and leaving you contemplating what you’ve ingested.

Yeah, sounds wanky, but it’s the only way I can describe it! There are a number of songs on this album that really connected with me in this way, such as Feelings of Grief, as well as a diverse range of other tracks peppering the list to disconcert me and jolt me out of my reverie. Right Outta My Head is a particularly disturbing track the end of which had me asking WTF?!

Thankfully these days we have the technical ability to arrange our own set-list, which is what I really felt was imperative here. It’s a bit folk, a bit country, a bit religious, a little rock, and very eclectic. Perhaps its because I’m not a massive Paul Kelly fan, or perhaps it’s because of the diversity of his talents, but the album kind of feels a little like he put a bunch of songs in a bag, shook it and spilled them out into this order. Some tracks I loved, some I tolerated (and they grew on me), some I down right loathed.

A few particular faves on this album were:

Feelings of Grief, a hauntingly beautiful track to start the album with, although I did get a strange look from my cat at the opening notes…

God Told Me To is very familiar to me from radio and TV, and has a real easy-going Aussie-rock kind of feel to it.

Stolen Apples Taste the Sweetest has a melancholy but quirky feel to it, and bizarrely, dare I say it, actually reminds me in places of the Smashing Pumpkins.

ELOISE GURR