Paul Kelly: Ways and Means

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

On this week's tour by veteran Aussie singer-songwriter Paul Kelly his faithful undoubtedly went along hoping to hear the old favourites, the songs that have effectively had him anointed the poet laureate of Oz rock.

Had Kelly decided just to play the songs off this new album instead, they might have been out of luck - it's a double, 21 songs, or 19 if you don't count the book-end twangin' guitar instrumentals of Gunnamatta and Let's Fall Again.

But then again, it's also Kelly's best album-plus in quite a while. For all its length, it's more thematically and stylistically cohesive than many of Kelly's 1990s albums.

And, of course, its double status echoes Gossip, his late 80s classic - with then backing band the Coloured Girls.

The first disc leans towards band-backed, occasionally blues-bent, pop-rockers and third-person or character-driven lyrics stories. The second seems more Kelly, the reflective acoustic-guitar singer-songwriter.

The first is oddly infectious, especially when the soul-strut of Sure Got Me veers into To Be Good Takes A Long Time, which sounds powered by a pub piano that has seen far too many closing times.

The second disc is more engaging for its personal approach and intimate mood.

It starts with the opening junkie's lament Little Bit O' Sugar, through to the unlucky-in-love King of Fools and Big Fine Girl, which possesses more healthy rural lust in the dust than an entire series of McLeod's Daughters.

So it's a bit of a sprawl but it's an engaging one.

The Kelly clan are recommended to order themselves a double.

(EMI)