There’s a song by Melbourne rabble rousers the Smith Street Band called Fuck Me & Call Me Jim Lawrie. It’s not as belligerent as you’d expect. It paints a starkly depressing portrait of life in share-houses, and one line refers to Lawrie as a “big, grizzly bear” (presumably lovingly).
The musicians all ran in the same circles as Courtney Barnett and Lawrie’s previous band Eagle and the Worm (he was the drummer), centred on the Birmingham hotel in Melbourne, in the late noughties. Eagle and the Worm played a form of mutant indie-pop that had its roots in the laconic experimentation of US bands such as Pavement and Ween of the early 90s: wigged-out rhythms, paranoid imaginings and falsetto post-Beach Boys harmonies.
Aside from being blessed with a higher register, plangent voice, Lawrie sounds nothing like. His first solo album, 2012’s Paying My Debts From the Grave, was a mostly acoustic affair – firmly situated within the alt-country spectrum.
On his second solo album, the artist formerly known as Grizzly Jim Lawrie (he dropped the “grizzly” tag in recognition of his growing maturity as a musician) has rounded the sound out – filling in the silences with sweetly harmonious instrumentation. In this, he is following a path commonly associated with classic Australian singer-songwriters such as Paul Kelly and the Gin Club’s much-underrated Ben Salter, and Canadian folk such as Neil Young. This is country rock with the guitars held high, swooping strings and brass sweetening the melancholy, often downbeat jangle. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the contemporary-sounding echoing drums, a song like Living the Dream could have been lifted directly from Young’s premature swansong, 1972’s Heart of Gold.
A beautiful cut, but perhaps too in thrall to its main influence to be considered classic. And this is a bit of a problem. Nothing that is contained within Eons hasn’t been heard before, and usually in a more accomplished manner.
Last year’s single Midnight Run is likable enough – a mellifluous, reflective strum that vaguely recalls Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain, but unlike that infamous number it doesn’t actually go anywhere, being seemingly content to linger in the general niceness of the sound.
The same goes for most of the other songs: they’re all very lush and well-crafted, but mostly, they don’t do anything, go anywhere. One immediately likable but mostly forgettable song follows another.
Taken in isolation, a song like Just Like Normal is a lovely, heartfelt moment buoyed by the wall of piano and guitars. In the context of another nine songs that sound near identical, its charm begins to fade a little. The song titles give it away – Good Old Days, Living the Dream, Spare Change, Time to Change. This is not music designed to unsettle.
And then, of course, there’s the fact Lawrie sounds like he’s stepped right out of the 70s. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, not at all. Just a little ordinary.
Like another obvious influence the War On Drugs, the lack of dynamics begins to count against Lawrie as he sifts lovingly through his Young collection, his love for Australiana. One forms the impression of a lovable character; polite, charming and blessed with a good knowledge of classic rock. The sort of fellow who grows an unruly beard, and makes music for other fellows with unruly beards.
Doubtless, Lawrie will find his own niche – indeed, bearing in mind the present climate in rock music in favour of serious music for serious people as typified by the War On Drugs, he could well flourish.
• Eons is out now on Barely Dressed
