Album Review: Josh Pyke & The Sydney Symphony Orchestra - Live At The Sydney Opera House

Collaborations between popular artists and orchestras often feel ego-driven.

Yet the songs performed here, selected mostly from Pyke's first four albums (the shows predated 2015's But For All These Shrinking Hearts), at least conspire to remind us what a smart songwriter he is. His voice is in great shape too (check out the falsetto on Order Has Abandoned Us), and the arrangements bring genuine freshness: tribal percussion and solo trumpet make an oddity of Still Some Big Deal; swelling strings carry Goldmines from alt-country to Spaghetti Western; the woodwind flourishes on Love Lies are lovely. Elsewhere, Sew My Name, Memories & Dust and others simply bloom with renewed drama.