Fiona McDonald - A Different Hunger

(Flying Nun)

****

Review: Russell Baillie

The title for former Headless Chicken and Strawperson Fiona McDonald's debut solo album comes, in effect, from a line in I Was I Was A Man. It's a musically forthright but lyrically clumsy song of penis envy on which McDonald alternates with another desire: "I wish I was your bed ..."

Aside from a bout of furniture fetish on what is quite the worst track, this still stacks up as a very good, highly assured first outing, one which clearly has sex on its mind and - apart from that misstep - quite a way of talking about it.

There are songs pulsating with sexual jealously (Don't Tell), guilt (Sin Again), abuse (a moody reworking of the Headless Chickens' George) and general come-hitherness (I Don't Care, Anything), delivered with a cool directness.

Musically, there's a run of tracks (Bury Me, Sin Again, Damage Control) powered by a techno-rock grind recalling the Chooks. There are also echoes of the frosty, string-laden textures of the Strawpeople (Blue Nails, the extravagantly appointed Strawberry Boy) and the occasional veer into sparse acoustic territory (I Don't Care) and languidly funky dancepop (Breathe).

That base-covering can play gentle havoc with the cohesiveness, but McDonald's voice, especially on her sultry delivery in the more downbeat numbers, gives this a connective emotional pull. The result, bad bloke track and all, is a classy, intelligently sexy pop album that's both arousing and arresting.