Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 07/17/2007
Two of Diamonds is
Bad Seed Mick Harvey's fourth proper solo album -- there are a number of
soundtracks out there that also bear his name -- and his third recording overall in two years. Other artists' songs principally make up the set -- particularly Australians who've moved and influenced him -- with a few tunes of his own placed strategically. The album opens with a killer reading of
the Saints'
"Photograph" that bring out all the pathos and grief in the original, but is added to by
Harvey's use of
Rosie Westbrook's double bass and
Thomas Wylder's drumming. The bookend track is a nod to his ex-bandmate
Simon Bonney, frontman of
Crime & the City Solution;
Harvey was their musical director after
the Birthday Party split. There are also tunes here by
the Triffids and
the Loved Ones. What sets this recording apart from its predecessors is that
Harvey is using what feels like a real band instead of either doing things himself, as he did on
One Man's Treasure, or groups of studio pals. Along with
Wylder and
Westbook are
James Johnston on guitar and organ and
Julitha Ryan on piano and backing vocals.
PJ Harvey's drummer/keyboardist
Rob Ellis also appears on a cut. The originals here are gorgeous, among the finest songs
Harvey's ever written.
"Blue Arrows" is a skeletal song with
Harvey playing guitars and piano and
Westbook's bass filled with spirit. Two and a half minutes in length, it hovers, shimmers, and floats while leaving its bittersweet melody embedded in the heart of the listener. Then there's
"Little Star," again under three minutes long, that emerges via a fade-in of piano and guitars playing a repetitive, nearly droning theme.
Harvey's vocal comes from the last couple of centuries somewhere, out of time and space, and glides through the lyric, another love song to the listener on the wind until the refrain, when the portrait of love's past is considered over distance and time itself like an open palm that contains blackened rose petals -- dead, gone, treasured.
Two of Diamonds' moody, brooding sweetness is the next step
Harvey takes out from under
Nick Cave's long shadow and into his own musical identity, keeping the listener in reverie for the album's entire run. Sadly beautiful, it's one of those sleepers that deserves to be heard, whispered about, and imprinted in the heart.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Cart 0 items
Listen
