Good news: there are more where Courtney Barnett came from. Fellow Melbourne singer-songwriter, Fraser A Gorman, shares both a label and a laconic singing style with Barnett; they habitually appear in each other’s videos. On his debut, Gorman is less indie rock and more classic Americana than Barnett, combining Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground and many pedal-steel points between. “Country music sounds to me like rock’n’roll,” he sings on Broken Hands, by way of explanation. Derivative Gorman may be, but he’s also confident and distinctive with it, describing someone who “nearly killed himself/ Sipping life from a lead paint-filled balloon” on Big Old World, supervising his band’s easy roll on We’re All Right.
