CD Review in Country Update Magazine Issue 44 April 07
By Kim Cheshire
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"Shaking Up The Mystery" - Shane Flew – Regal Records(MGM)
Considering how long he's been a part of the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Sydney music scene you could still be excused if you've never heard of him because Shane Flew has spent the last twenty five years playing other peoples music.
As a live/session drummer/singer he has played with The Flood, Graeme Connors, Troy Cassar-Daley, Normie Rowe, Alex Smith and many others.
He has played and sung on over forty albums, recorded countless jingles and soundtracks but having developed a passion for songwriting and a new found confidence in fronting a band rather than driving it from the drum stool, he decided to adjust the emphasis from drummer who sings to singer/songwriter who drums and the results are impressive indeed. I realized on first listen to Shaking up the Mystery that his first solo venture '7,000 Miles' in 2002 was really just a rough outline of what he is capable of.
This is the kind of album you don't hear much of these days, it's not rock, country, blues, jazz or any of the genres really, yet it contains elements of them all, the songs are well written lyrically and musically, they are sung with authority and the whole thing is suffused with an enthusiastic energy.
There's a hint of Bruce Hornsby here and there, I occasionally hear a Gerry Rafferty influence in the vocal, a little Matt Finish or UK Squeeze in the band and with the assorted vocal contributions from an array of Sydney luminaries, the Beach Boys certainly have to get a nod.
The album has a strong focus, the songs sit together really well, the production by Sydney session guitarist Rex Goh although a little old school is well considered and appropriate, the arrangements are imaginative and there's some excellent contributions from some of Sydney's finest musicians.
The songs cover a variety of topics from the philosophical the political, the positive the cynical, innocence, lost love, found love and even a song about neither called 'This is Not a Love Song'.
The lyrics are smart, literate and mostly literal and the tunes which cover a variety of rock, pop, New Orleans and country rock style grooves don`t always go where you expect but still linger and the whole thing is as solid as a rock…pre U2 rock that is!
Addendum
I have a theory that before U2 most rock music was constructed in a part in a particularly traditional manner dating back to the early days of rock-n-roll. With the advent of the U2 approach, along with open tunings, simple guitar figures enhanced by digital effects, and a particular set of production values they almost single-handedly re-invented rock music and just about every post U2 alternative/mainstream rock act today carry elements of their template. The more traditional approach, still found in country, most roots music and older style rock and Blues acts, has become it seems, a dying art.
Apart from the current crop of retro style rock acts a la Jet, The Strokes, Wolfmother etc the approach that gave us bands like the Beatles, the Stones and the majority of 60s and 70s music in general is rarely heard on contemporary commercial radio anymore, a world dominated by post U2 rock, mindless Australian Idol style pop(I prefer pap) and electronic dance based grooves.