The True Sea kicks off Paul Dempsey’s Strange Loop,an epic seven-minute feat dealing with space and its many dimensions while offering up intricate guitar work and several sonic peaks. Dempsey’s second solo release comes seven years after his debut, Everything Is True, and while Dempsey has maintained his folk rock roots, Strange Loop reveals another side of his songwriting.
Blending the familiar with the brand new, the title track is an instant acoustic-powered anthem. Matching lines like,“Tell me baby what’s so good about feeling understood?” with cleverly climatic drumming, the album already feels like a success by its second song. Clearly aiming to diversify, Dempsey experiments with textures and sampling. Idiot Oracle includes double-tracked drums, while also conveying the mood of a campfire sing-along. Slowing it down for a second is the scenic Hey History (Don’t Go Changing), which features a killer guitar solo and another powerful vocal performance. Lifetime Supply is a more sorrowful state of affairs, with Dempsey singing, “And I want to kill you when you say that time will tell / Go on disappear, see if the song is gonna sing itself”.
Kicking it up a gear, Morningless would make the best wake-up call after a late night. Immediately engaging and the right tempo for some jumping around, the song is a rallying call if ever there was one. Dempsey continues to display his dynamic range by finger plucking his way into Be Somebody; Iris Black is a folk-tinged rockabilly number with a surreal tale to tell (see lines like, “the child actors that are flying backwards into the mid-morning sun” for evidence); and Volunteers is another one with imagery galore.
Album closer, Nobody’s Trying To Tell Me Something, leaves an everlasting memory. Dempsey bluntly blurts out “go fuck yourself” without a second thought. It’s another uncharacteristic move from this celebrated Australian artist.
BY PHOEBE ROBERTSON
