Ben Mason recently paid tribute to The Zombies with a purist reinterpretation of their 1968 album Odyssey and Oracle. The attention to detail that draws together separate songs to make a multilayered entity is a big part of Odyssey and Oracle’s enduring appeal, and this quality has left its imprint on the Melbournite’s new LP. While Mason’s previous album, 2013’s Holes And Corners, is a fine collection of songs nestled in the same spot, She’d Need A Heart builds, swells and fades across its 40 nostalgia-fuelled minutes, and it wouldn’t be quite as effective had it been sequenced differently.
The trilling strings of cinematic opener Birds On the Wire conjure an image of animated bluebirds, while horns and woodpecker-like percussion introduce the pastoral folk-pop song Help The Best Things Grow. The tongue-in-cheek Americana stylings of Suburban Cowboy lead into the Scarecrow trilogy (She’d Need A Heart, I’d Bring You Sunshine, Esmerelda), where a suburban garden scarecrow comes to life – it’s not as creepy as it sounds, more of an offbeat love story that’s actually rather sweet.
The album’s second half is moodier and less pop-driven, encompassing curtain-twitching paranoia set to swirling synths, quiet-to-loud psych-pop, and expansive, looser closing songs.
For the first time in his solo career, it’s hard to imagine any of these songs on an album by The Smallgoods, Mason’s former band. Harmonies have always been a big part of his sound, but the vocals are stripped back almost completely on She’d Need A Heart, revealing a singer-songwriter that has found his voice and made the most of the album format to showcase it.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
