Hometown Glory

He's the type of guy you could take home to your mother; sweet, intelligent and you know he'd call you the morning after. I am of course talking about Josh Pyke, Australia's way of making it up to the world for allowing Keith Urban to sing...to exist. His second full-length LP is Chimney's A'Fire, and while the title may sound like a chapter out of a Dickens novel, Josh should be congratulated for overcoming the trap that many artists fall into of repeating the clichés we've heard a million times before in his brand of folk-pop. Thank be to God there are no "i love you, i love you, i love you...", "you're so beautiful" or any other kind of crap that have nearly destroyed every man with an acoustic guitar's chance to be taken seriously. No, no, no, i am happy to say Josh cooks up a more sophisticated flavour of love and loss. That being said, unfortunately the concession for this lyrical smart has been a certain amount of musical monotony, that taints the album due to a significant lack of variety between upbeat and down-tempo songs.

Last year, Josh Pyke featured in my top albums list of 2007 - his first album Memories & Dust provided confirmation that the folk-pop troubadour had the lyrical wax to match any of the Damien Rice's and Ryan Adams's out there. Barely a year later, he has released part two, and it's pretty much just more memories and more dust - Chimney's A'Fire is not so much a jump forward but a shimmy to the side of what we've already heard from this Sydneysider.

This album could have a polarising effect on fans due to the fact that musically - it is remarkably (and somewhat disappointingly) similar. Generally the melodies and arrangements of the songs are basically the same as those on the debut album if not slightly more complicated. But its complexity does not pay off completely, as it rarely does in this genre, and the result is unfortunately predictable and sometimes boring music. There are the basic finger-picking guitar ditties and the sweeping majestic string accompaniments but none of the twists and turns that could have made the songs that little bit more catchy and memorable.

Add this folly to the baffling fact that Josh, who produced the album himself has begun the album with the most sleepy and downright forgettable track - which does not make for good first impressions. What's worse is that track two, You Don't Scare Me is such an upbeat, catchy song, it makes you think that there is more to come. Alas, there is not, as track 3, The Summer serenades in, a song so saturated in nostalgia that you might as well sit the kids down and tell them the story of how you met their mother at a Bee Gees tribute show and how petrol used to only cost 75c a litre.

This being said, what Chimney's A'Fire lacks in musical nerve and freshness it makes up for with such accomplished lyrical density that you start to wonder whether the album will be nominated for an ARIA award or the Noble Prize for Literature. Okay, maybe that's an unjustified over-statement, but what I'm trying to say is this guy can string some words together; take the last verse from The Summer:

"But time is like the ocean,
you can only hold a little in your hands,
so swim before we’re broken,
before our bones become,
black coral on the sand."

Okay i know out of the context of the songs it sounds a bit pretentious, but believe me, when you hear him say it, he might as well be Socrates. Well maybe not Socrates, but Josh definitely has the ability to make even his most Snow Patrol lyrics not make you wanna beat the crap outta him. His sincerity alone keeps him afloat and pretty much gives him wuss-immunity for the entirety of the album.

Never quite straying from the lullaby tempo, the album is best listened to as a whole rather than individually, assuming you're not driving or operating heavy machinery at the time. If Josh doesn't impress you in the first innings, he finishes a lot stronger than he started, with the penultimate and closing tracks delicately showing his class and growth as a songwriter. New Year's Song should be praised above all other songs on this album for its innovative phrasing that has already characterised Pyke in his brief career, with an extraordinary ability to make the mundane sound wistful as he opens the song observing,

"If you’re freezing on your left side,
And you’re boiling on your right side,
Then I guess you might be warm upon the line,
There are many ways one can divide a life,
And I’ve got mine"

Closing track, Where Two Oceans Meet while at first seems like a book-end waste of time like the first track, runs deeper than first impressions. It reminds me of Ben Harper circa. 1997 - a very good thing indeed. Slow and meditative with gospel inflected beauty, Josh shows a different side of his pallet branching out from his folk-pop to deeper territory, exactly what he needs to be doing at this point in his career.

With more balls than his physique gives him credit for, Chimney's A'Fire shows off Josh's natural talent as a producer. The drawback of producing your own work though is always going to be becoming too one-eyed because there isn't another person in the studio to draw you in different directions. And while that may be the case with this largely down-tempo second LP, Josh succeeds on a whole due largely to his unmistakable talent as a songwriter getting him over the line. With enough diamonds in the rough, this album only promises more to come, with his lyrical muscle flexing and his musical landscape not shifting too far from the comfort zone of his fans, something they will either love or become easily frustrated with. For me, while there are patches of mediocrity the beauty of the album is infectious and for now I'm just going to stay warm upon the line.

B+