Jeff Lang - Half Seas Over (Album)
» Jeff Lang (Half Seas Over Album Launch) - Basement, The, NSW - May 31, 2008
» Jeff Lang - Her Majesty's Theatre, SA - May 17, 2008
» Jeff Lang - Basement, The, NSW - May 31, 2008
» Jeff Lang + Ash Grunwald - Milanos, Vic - February 6, 2005
Jeff Lang’s music is timeless. Timeless in a sense of being beyond time, existing outside of time. As such, around every corner of the words and notes of his songs lie gateways out of any world holding the listener down. In his new album Half Seas Over he may not burn your soul or electrify your ears as he has done in the past, but he resolutely oozes comfort with his craft and almost unbelievable skill.
If you are unfamiliar with Jeff Lang then you are forgiven, but still pitiable, simply because of the homework you have unto you now. This isn’t a starter album, so beginning fans best put it away for a little while and seek out any one of a dozen previous albums all worth repeated listening. This album is a very fine addition to a consistent, engaging, rapturous catalogue of, debatably, Australia’s best Folk/Blue/Roots/Country artist.
This is Mr. Lang’s maturing, by calming the sound and slightly raising his vocal pitch, while producing some of his most lyrical wordings yet, Half Seas Over feels out of sync with this time of self-righteous vanity, and exaggerated pleasures.
The songs are all for the most part concise stories along the traditional paths of folk and blues music, which at first listening feel underwhelming, as in Southern Highlands Daughter, Copper Mine, and Ghosting on my Mind , but the strength of a well made song is not in the recording of one particular performance, and folk music is a passing on and personalisation of songs. This is represented well in an effecting rendition of the old folk song The House Carpenter(aka ‘The Daemon Lover’) about a woman falling for a devil in disguise and taken away from her loving house carpenter husband and her small child. This sombreness is continued with the other traditional song My Mother Always Talked to Me which embodies a nostalgia blended repentance harkening to old Australia in his rendering.
There is no doubt in my mind that what we have been given here are far reaching, long lasting, grounded songs perfectly assembled as an album of self assured artistry.
