Reviews

The Whitlams

Little Cloud

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Review Date: 2006-06-16

Most people who visit this website will have had no knowledge of The Whitlams before this review. So let me begin by giving a bit of a backstory. Essentially, they’re the Australian Ben Folds Five. Don’t like Ben Folds? Then you won’t like The Whitlams. You may as well stop reading now. If piano isn’t your thing; if you just live for that 17th fret vibrato; then The Whitlams just aint your bag baby. They’re distinctly Australian. Heck, they’re even named after former Aussie Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. I bet they play Aussie Rules Football in their spare time, as well as have pet kangaroos and all drink Fosters lager. They even go around calling each other “poofters”. But apart from being as Australian as they come, The Whitlams sure do make some good music.

Their latest release is a double album. Everyone knows double albums are notoriously difficult. How do you achieve the right balance to make people listen to both discs equally? One is always going to better than the other. And as well as that, people will give out that they could have edited it all down into one disc. It’s been a few years since their last album, and they’ve “been away too long” – or so the album opener would have you believe. A lot of the lyrics and songs are about being away of travelling. Tim Freedman must have done a lot of travelling since the last record – one place he went was New York, where he wrote many of the songs which appear on the album. ‘White Horses’ is one of these. From the song it seems that New York has thought him nothing new, as it sounds like it could have been on any of the band’s earlier albums.

‘I Was Alive’ is the first single from the album, and contains some really pounding honky-tonk piano, as well as lyrics about Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. The breakdown section sounds strangely familiar to something I’ve heard before though, just can’t put my finger on it. ‘Year of the Rat’ was written with Sydney jazz group Aronas, and this influence is very obvious on this jazzy number. ‘Keep The Light On’ is a slow, sombre song about a guy who’s down on his luck, but still has some promise left. There’s no crescendo in the song, and because of this it feels much more natural, especially regarding the subject matter.

‘Tonight’ has a piano-riff very like Rachael Yamagata’s piano work on her 2005 album Happenstance. Luckily, it’s as good as anything on Happenstance. The chorus contains an echo effect which works well on the song, and adds to it rather than taking from it. ’12 Hours’ is a song by Freedman, recorded without the rest of the band. If he ever wants to embark on a solo career, that avenue is definitely open to him. It contains barely any melody, but some very nice lyrics e.g. “If they want to let me into Heaven, they can close down Hell.” The title track ends the first disc (also named ‘Little Cloud’), and was also written in the Big Apple. It ends the disc on a sombre note, making a trio of downbeat songs bookending disc one.

Usually disc one is the better of the two discs on double albums. This is not the case here. Disc two is the more upbeat of the two, and thus is much easier to warm to. ‘Beauty in Me’ and the similarly-titled ‘Beautiful As You’ are two heart-warming stories. The former about a girl he once knew in college who went on to be successful; and the latter a love story about getting home from New York to be with his love. ‘Fondness Makes the Heart Grow Absent’ is a wonderful song-title, and the song which Freedman refers to as his “favourite song on the album”. It’s no wonder either: it’s simple and understated, but yet brilliant. Never overpowering, it hits the right balance between piano and guitar.

‘Second Best’ is exactly that – not good enough. The listener shouldn’t have to settle for this. ‘Fancy Lover’ is made by its wonderful harmonies á la ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’. ‘Stay With Me’ is the most Ben Folds-like sounding track on the album, and thus loses out for its unoriginality. ‘She’s Moving In’, on the other hand, is totally original – and has all sorts of jazz influences – it’s quite atonal to say the least. She’s moving in all her stuff, which is a lot: “Poland’s been invaded with less.” The song is very jarring, and won’t appeal to most listeners.

Disc two (and thus the whole album) ends with a live track recorded with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, called ‘The Curse Stops Here’. It’s about the death of one of the band’s former members (Stevie Plunder). The band have been cursed with tragedy: bandmember Andy Lewis also died tragically. But hopefully “the curse stops here”. And since the song was recorded live, what better way to end the album, than with some applause.

Tracks to Download: Fondness Makes The Heart Grow Absent, The Curse Stops Here, Beautiful As You, Tonight

Score: 6.8

Many of the songs aren’t good enough, and thus the album suffers as a whole. The second disc is less than half-an-hour and the first one around forty minutes. There’s no reason why this album couldn’t have been a single-disc record. But when you’ve had as much success as The Whitlams have had for their label, you can bloody well do what you like. You poofter!

- Ronan Hunt-Murphy