Powderfinger - Golden Rule

Powderfinger. Photo / Supplied

Rating: * * *

It might sound like music geek territory, but some of the most interesting elements of Powderfinger's seventh album are the bass and drums.

Foot-planting rocker All Of the Dreamers is as throbbing and pulsing as the Brisbane band get, and on the serenading and soaring Burn Your Name, drummer Jon Coghill brandishes a shoegazer-meets-Stone Roses dance beat that drives the song along.

All this means Golden Rule is more tough and raw than the Aussie rock veterans have ever been. Iberian Dream is brassy and bombastic; the slow, chain-gang sing-a-long of Think It Over builds into a full-blown choral recital complete with wailing guitar and military-style snare beats; and they bang heads, psych up, and get their fuzz rock on for Jewel, where they sound more like fellow Australians Jet.

Of course there are moments of beautiful balladeering on Sail The Wildest Stretch and Poison In Your Mind - for fans of their biggest New Zealand hit, My Happiness - and even pure folkiness, with the album-ending title track verging on baroque folk.

Lyrically singer Bernard Fanning is hardly profound, trotting out the "let sleeping dogs lie" style lines, but he's in fine voice, changing from rough-and-ready on the raunchier songs to stark and poignant on the ballads.

While they never lose sight of their rousing and refined rock roots, they've changed it up after more than 20 years as a band, and for that you have to salute them.