Suzie Stapleton first appeared in 2007, when she had “had a shot of tequila, borrowed a guitar and played for the first time at an open-mic night in St Kilda.”(A shot of hard liquor? Colour me impressed.) Since then, she has recorded an album with help from local notables including Rui Pereira (The Drones), Charlie Owen (Beasts Of Bourbon) and Ian Kitney (Temperance Union). This, her first single, is a heavy, mellow bit of maudlin femme moaning that evokes a slow-moving PJ Harvey or a seriously doped-up Melissa Etheridge. Being not much of a PJ Harvey fan and no great lover of Melbourne’s tragically hip pub rock-cum-new school publican crowd, I don’t love this. It’s all atmosphere and middling songcraft. The spooling, duelling guitars are pretty, but the vocal style is too dated and glacial for my tastes.
Suzie Stapleton : Bring Back The Night
