Album Review: Mike Noga - King

Even before vacating The Drones' drum stool, his solo work was proving Mike Noga a songwriter of wit and style and a performer of a certain rakishness. But the quiet, dusty charm of his previous album, 2011's The Balladeer Hunter, doesn't prepare you for the sprawl and density of this.

King is loosely a concept album, based on Woyzeck — an often bleak late-19th century play that touches on modern issues such as post-traumatic stress and medical experimentation, along with more timeless themes like jealousy-provoked murder and an attendant descent into madness.

With added narration from actor Noah Taylor, Noga's songs can churn as Jack's mind and world disintegrates, songs like Greys To Reds and the headlong stumbling of Nobody Leads Me To Flames getting close to a ragged edge. But Noga can leaven that with other moods — as in the wry, resigned shrug of All My Friends Are Alcoholics, a blackly comic pub singalong destined to be a favourite. He even recasts one of his earlier songs, Down Like JFK, to a recognition that things are going to shit, and likely destined to sink further.

Noga already has a burgeoning international reputation, opening for diverse peers from Band Of Horses to Low, providing a talent that can fit and complement a range of music. Here he's turned the play's tragedy into a little triumph, making an album that both owes to the traditions of Australian rock, but also comes at it from some fresh angles.