[Published in the Review section of The Weekend Australian, Oct 6 2024]
COUNTRY
Backbone
Kasey Chambers
Essence Music / MGM
4 stars
The reverence with which Kasey Chambers is afforded by her fanbase is without question, the unassuming queen of Australian country music commanding the respect of any and all over two and a half decades of brutal honesty, of laying bare her soul across a slew of albums, countless live shows. And this, indeed, is her hallmark, her songs bruise-purple and raw, the pure truth with which she writes and sings the reason she is so loved.
On her thirteenth studio album, coming twenty-five years after the incredible success of her solo debut, The Captain, Chambers doesn’t let up. In fact, if it were even possible, Backbone sees this inimitable artist hit heights heretofore unimaginable, acting as it does as somewhat of a memoir of her life thus far, delving deep into the highs and lows (and there have been plenty of both) that have defined her life, her times, her music, since she struck out on her own all those years ago.
The companion to her new book, Just Don’t Be A Dickhead, Backbone takes the tales related within and gives them power and musical life. Opener, A New Day Has Come, sets the emotional scene with its mournful pedal steel accompanying a song about hope, “Everything’s gonna be alright…” she repeats over and over as the song fades to a close. Survival seems to be somewhat of a sub-theme of the album, the notion that despite how bad things can be, Chambers has pulled through, and so is here today delivering these very songs. Through this, she sings of her children, of longing for a love akin to hers of Springsteen, of losing love and finding it again. Of the former, she duets with ex-partner Shane Nicholson for the first time in over a decade on the aptly titled, yet jaunty and fun, The Divorce Song, their harmonies as rough-yet-sweet as they always were. Little Red Riding Hood and Dart n Feather move things across to the dark and smokey chain-rattlin’ style of country music, which adds strong foundation points to an album which, for the most part, is more intricate and emotional (Silverado Girl a prime example, so too the hymn-like My Kingdom Come, featuring Ondara) than loose and ribald.
Chambers’ father Bill adds his timeless guitar stylings to proceedings, as does Sam Teskey and current partner Brandon Dodd, while long-time bassist Jeff McCormack keeps impeccable time, along with American drummer Brady Blade (Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams).
Backbone closes in spectacular fashion, a reimagining of Eminem’s Grammy-winning Lose Yourself, recorded live at Newcastle’s Civic Theatre in June 2022. The song’s opening salvo is sparse, almost desolate, but it leaks into a second act that bursts forth, crashing and churning before finally dying, raucous applause carrying on unabated, only ending when engineer Nash Chambers fades the song out, closing down an album which sees Kasey Chambers once again laying herself bare, nothing hidden, nothing exaggerated; just the truth.
Samuel J. Fell