Album Review: Cash Savage And The Last Drinks The Hypnotiser

It's a darkened country road. It's in Cash Savage's voice all the time. But it's an Australian one of now, the city lights maybe just a fading glow in the rear view mirror.

In various places, she's behind the wheel – running to or from something, or trying to sleep in the passenger seat, or looking out the servo café window wishing she was on that bus to somewhere – anywhere – else. Her voice is rightly lauded: a range of thirsts, longing and the blues in it. And the band, with deep bowed violin and occasional blares of brass to get your eyes back on those white highway lines, serve her – but strong enough to never be completely overwhelmed by the howl she can exhale.

Sure, there's classic done-me-wrong country like Five Boys One Farm (“one bad divorce”) or the grim anecdote of 95km To Sandy Point – where the Black Saturday bushfires get overshadowed by having to face that ex you can do without seeing. There's even an Appalachian-ish duet in Howling For Me – as she and guitarist Tim Neilson take a drive to bury… something, with just enough ambiguity to make you ponder what.

But the real business here is the almost hymnal ache of I'm In Love – the banjo just a pluck underneath, and a mourning trumpet emphasising the arch in her back, and the fall she knows almost seems inevitable. Or, like the Early Morning Come Down Blues has it, sometimes “My beer don't work/My wine don't work/My gin don't work/And my weed don't work”. Cash Savage provides the soundtrack for days like that.