Crucible – The Songs Of Hunters & Collectors
Liberation Music
With an AFL Grand Final appearance and a tribute LP sorted in their honour, it’s no wonder Hunters & Collectors have booked a sold-out tour of the country in early 2014.
With their beginnings as inner city darlings, to their eventual life as an Aussie pie-and-beer icon, there’s a diversity of flavours in the Hunnas ethos, which are well explored here. Eddie Vedder & Neil Finn (Throw Your Arms Around Me), The Living End (Say Goodbye) and Something For Kate (When The River Runs Dry) all offer faithful-to-the-original versions, playing to their own strengths as well as the strengths inherent in the songs. Oh Mercy off a suitable creepy The Slab (Betty’s Worry) but this songs was always superior in the live form.
Birds Of Tokyo (Talking To A Stanger), Matt Corby & Missy Higgins (This Morning) and Abbe May (Dog) offer unique interpretations. The Rubens scored the obligatory Holy Grail, which comes across as overdone as the TV sports broadcast usage of the song in the last decade or more. Alpine’s take on Hear No Evil, meanwhile, is icy and distant, at odds with the trademark passionate delivery of Mark Seymour, but strangely compelling as a result.
A second disc of H&C’s original versions sets the record straight again, but all up there’s plenty of interest (new and old) on here.
_ BOB GORDON
