‘Gunnamatta’ is a long surf beach on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria that can get pretty ‘wild and rippy’ on occasions. There are sharks there too, apparently. I say this not because it’s the title of the opening track on the album – although it is – I say it because it’s a perfect indication of the unspoiled languor of the album. Too laid back for some, I imagine. But if you wriggle yourself free of all that sweaty, punky posturing you’ve been indulging in of late – where anything is good as long as it’s screaming in blue jeans and hanging out at the Camden Monarch – you just might enjoy this album. Paul Kelly might be unlikely to grace the front page of Sleaze Nation or the NME at any point in his career and he may sidestep fashion with the kind of abandon reserved for fly-half rugby players – but his casual brand of gentle rock is as accomplished as you can get. Well-crafted songs and neat musicianship may not be capable of starting any fires in this day and age, but ‘Ways and Means’ recalls a period of consumate fatherly charm. Bob Dylan, Van Morrison – they’re all here in one guise or another, and whiles ‘Gunnamatta’ may recall the lush and sultry surf-sound of the Shadows, tracks like ‘Heavy Thing’ and ‘Crying Same’ provide a mean delta downside. At it’s during points like this that it becomes entirely possible for Paul Kelly to sit along such scurrilous blusters and pranksters as Gomez and The Coral. Mostly though, well-crafted narratives are the order of the day as ‘The Oldest Story In Book’ clearly demonstrates. In fact, it’s a song that wouldn’t sound out of place on Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’. The same lolling pace, the same preoccupation with first names, the same twiddly, whining bottlenecks. It’s pure if nothing else. The nasal drawl of ‘Won’t You Come Around’ might recall Tom Petty (okay, that’s fairly regrettable) but it also cracks open a long lost bottle of Lloyd Cole on occasions too. Neat wordplay and devilish sweet trickery.
In June 1997, Paul released a greatest hits album titled Songs from the South in his homeland Australia that debuted at No.1 on the Australian charts and went triple platinum. Says it all really. It’s very often the quietest voices that spring the loudest surprises.
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