Review Summary: Each day, looking for new ways....
Powderfinger takes musical influence from the Stones and Led Zeppelin, combine it with their own brilliant lyric writing and composing to make Vulture Street, arguably the strongest, boldest album of their excellent careers. This is the only mostly hard rocking album Powderfinger would ever make, and they make the most of it. Featuring four radio hits (BABY I’VE GOT YOU ON MY MIND, SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE, LOVE YOUR WAY and SUNSETS) and a stack of excellent deep cuts, Vulture Street is one of the best Australian rock albums of the modern era.
The album makes a definitive start with the powerful riffage opening of ROCKIN’ ROCKS, which is quietly nostalgic with its lyric content:
Happy memories, that I remember/Home spun memories of stormy weather/Juggling scissors in the afternoon, picking up sounds from across the room, I got…
The ARIA winning (BABY I’VE GOT YOU) ON MY MIND, used for the 2006 AFL finals series, is a Powderfinger take on the Stones. Despite the arrogantly expectant sounding title, it is a fairly poignant love song with a simple, huge hook of a riff.
SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE is a bluesy lament to lead singer Bernard Fanning’s deceased brother and one of the best songs on the album. The keyboard and drumming is very reminiscent of the JPJ-Bonham partnership of Led Zeppelin, while special mention must be made to the lyrics: you truly believe every word that Fanning sings.
The wonderfully poignant LOVE YOUR WAY shows that Powderfinger have only minorly reinvented themselves: it sounds like something off 1998’s Internationalist, only far more simple and polished. Once again, brilliant lyrics writing and fusion of acoustic and rock:
It’s only an imaginary vigil that we keep
You salvage what you need, I’ll take….the love you leave
SUNSETS would become an Aussie summer anthem, publicly perceived as an ode to endless days on the beach. The lyrics are somewhat wistful, but the song’s mood overrides it. The best song off the album, if not the biggest hit.
The absolutely loveable, tongue in cheek DON’T PANIC has a simply unforgettable, irresistable onamatopoeia chorus:
Big fat paypack bleeding like a smokestack (I’m running, I’m running)
We got a dud pump speed bump burning like a fuel dump (I’m coming, I’m coming)
STUMBLIN’ is fairly bitter and angry, ROLL RIGHT BY YOU is fairly bluesy. Both solid songs, followed by HOW FAR HAVE WE REALLY COME? This is an absolute hippy song. It’s one of the most unusual songs that Powderfinger ever did, as thereis very little regard to music with the simple, acoustic sound. The lyrics don’t overly care about rhythm or, for a good percentage of the song, rhyme. It’s a heartbreakingly anti-war ballad with a brilliant tagline:
For every battle lost and won, are these the ones that we offer up?
POCKETS begins with an eerie and quiet instrumental. When Fanning comes in, his layered voice sounds as if he is drowning, and since the lyrics are about a dishonest, crumbling relationship, we can imagine him slipping under a dark surface of an abyss, especially as he cries out:
I want you to stay….staaay…..staaaayyy….
The song crashes into a heavier, pained sound for the final three minutes, but its arguably the first three that we remember. POCKETS is the best non-radio hit off the album.
The final, list style A SONG CALLED EVERYTHING is aptly culminative: combining love, grief and rock, the main ingredients for the album. A SONG CALLED EVERYTHING is possibly the defining song off the album (don’t confuse that for best).
Vulture Street is a brilliant album. If you’re out and you are near a CD store, it’s worth detouring to buy it. In fact, if you’re not, you should change your route so that you are.
