POPTears For Fears, The Tipping Point(Concord) ***1/2“It’s been a Long, Long, Long Time,” Curt Smith sings on the latest Tears For Fears album. Indeed it has, 17 years to be precise, since their last studio set. Yet all these decades since their ’80s heyday the same pop sensibility remains. After the deceptive opener No Small Thing their familiar driving synth pop comes to the fore. “My Demons don’t get out that much,” Smith sings ominously, and elsewhere female harmonies are used to great effect, as on the aforementioned Long, Long, Long Time. The sublime Rivers of Mercy is this album’s Woman in Chains. Please Be Happy displays their Beatles influences with its Long and Winding Road feel. “Lost between the Beatles and the Stones,” Smith recalls of their early years on Master Plan, a thinly veiled swipe at a former manager. And it seems they’re doing fine without him, with an album as strong as any they’ve released.Tears For Fears – The Tipping PointCOUNTRYCasey Barnes, Light It Up(Independent) ***Casey Barnes might originally hail from Tassie, but now he’s a Gold Coaster Queensland will proudly lay claim to him. And if his sixth studio album is any indication he could be following in the footsteps of our other huge country product Keith Urban. Like the boy from Caboolture, and many other country artists these days, Barnes is firmly entrenched on the crossover-pop side of the genre. For instance, if it weren’t for the slight twang on Kiss Me Like You Mean It it might pass for Mark Ronson. Light It Up and Up in Flames are a one-two pyro punch, Barnes’s Small Town is decidedly poppier than John Cougar Mellencamp’s, while he subsists on a diet of alcohol and booty calls on This Ain’t the Encore.Casey Barnes – Light It UpALTERNATIVEDon McGlashan, Bright November Morning(MGM) ***1/2The former Muttonbirds frontman and sometime Neil Finn collaborator unleashes his fourth solo album, and as usual it’s a thoughtful, textured affair. Lights Come On celebrates the beginning of another recording process, and there are songs about historical heroes (Shackleton) and villains (John Bryce): “Light up John Bryce on the fifth of November/Make it Parihaka Day.” There are more personal moments too. Sunscreen fondly recalls a child’s first experience of the beach: “You took your first steps in the sand, a tiny Michelin Man.” And Song For Sue has shades of Long Time Gone, his song with Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide: “I can’t believe this is the end/This is not the way it’s meant/To happen,” he sings as he takes the world to task for not sharing his grief over a departed soulmate. Still, the album ends on an optimistic note with Start Again.Don McGlashan – Bright November Morning
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