SWEET TALK – SWITCH ON: REVIEW
- Bernard Zuel
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
SWEET TALK
Switch On (Cheatin Hearts/WMA)
HEY KIDS, IN THE DIM DARK RECESSES of Australian music, back when Anne Kirkpatrick was approaching rock and blues from the country side and The Dingoes were approaching country from the rock and blues side, there was something about the southern America melange of greasy bar grooves, beefy sounds and slide guitars, beer-soaked keyboards and husky soul, that seemed to fit Australia. Yes, even if some were singing about Arkansas grass like they had grown up in Fayetteville instead of Yarraville.
It didn’t last, with music buyers and dope dealers the principal, but not only losers as the boogie bands turned into pub rock, country chased away its fringe for another few decades, and soul struggled to get a solid foothold for at least as long. Instead, the combo sound and style would turn up occasionally, flare brightly, but ease back into the niche category: The Badloves went there at times, Diesel has crossed the path too, while more recently, Mia Dyson, Liz Stringer and Dana Gehrman have lifted and carried the standard superbly.
Melbourne has been a welcoming down south home for most of them, and that is the town in which we find the six-piece Sweet Talk (we’ll call them southerners, though several of them actually grew up on the Gold Coast, a northern post which is at least sweaty, if not very greasy) and a debut that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but steers it with such ease that the idea of a natural Australian fit returns.
For a start, there is no Arkansas grass but a tale about grass-induced altered states in the (very real) border town of Texas in Queensland, called with admirable clarity and appropriate comma, Stoned In Texas, Queensland.
A song which is both amused and amusing, Stoned In Texas, Queensland has the lope of the practised smoker, the chug of an eager drinker, and the alternative recipe for gravy of someone regularly beset by the munchies. There is a West Coast cooler breeziness to it with Craig Mattingley’s saloon piano and everyone’s Little River Band harmonies suggesting wind through your thinning hair, and Tane Walker’s vocals roughened-enough voice reminding you there are some off-road parts on this route.
Mattingley propels the brisk boogie of I’d Rather Be Alone, letting guitarists Soren Walker and David Turner get frisky across the top, and his organ anchors Summertime Speakeasy in something swampy, while the guitars return the favour in the chicken-dinner slipperiness of Backseat Of My Car and the more predictable Hurricane. But it’s deceptively casual ensemble playing, including the light touch of drummer Nic Symons and bass player Vincent Harding, which eases Six O’Clock Swill into adult territory.
The more I hear that song in particular, the more I think Steve Prestwich would have enjoyed sitting at the back of the room with Don Walker, nodding appreciatively: the songwriting isn’t at their standard, but the spirit holds up.
Sitting at the back of the room though would make one thing clear: given their reputation for ripsnorting shows, the kind that make festival audiences gaga and send pub audiences to the bar, Switch On is a relatively polite capturing of what Sweet Talk can do. Cranking the volume up, unbuttoning your shirt, or doing this in a high humidity space with a bourbon in hand can alleviate, but not eliminate, the problem: this is music to be enjoyed in company in the end, not examined all that closely.
But then, that is a criticism that has plagued bands from Little Feat down, so once again these southerners are in decent company.
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