Album Review: Oh Mercy - Deep Heat

If the cover art of Oh Mercy's third record doesn't jump out at you, then the tracks that make up the album certainly will. Alexander Gow hasn't gone all samba on us; however, the Melburnian and his cohorts have returned to the fold with their most colourful and dynamic record to date.

The groovy Deep Heat gets things moving before the dark and moody My Man cuts in, the track aching with real soul and feeling. A vocal grab of Paul Kelly and Gow in the studio following the tune drives home what this album's about – third person tales, fiction, storytelling – the same sort of fare that Kelly, the great man of Australian song, dabbles in himself. Fever takes that pout a step further, with killer verses such as “Some people said I was good, other people said I was great/I met the Governor of California and called him mate,” leaving the track dripping in cool. Drums Of Love, meanwhile, sees some cowbell, bongos and other apt percussion come to the party, and when Gow pushes high in his register the track becomes as sexy as anything Oh Mercy have written. Even when the dubby Still Making Me Pay starts to tread the middle ground, Burke Reid's thoughtful production manages to get it over the line.

Gow has dumped a load of ideas on this disc but it never once comes across as overwrought or congested. Like a sonic amalgamation of Oh Mercy's first two records, the Melbourne songwriter has taken the layers of Privledged Woes, integrated it with the stark, tight nature of Great Barrier Grief and twisted it into ten intriguingly charming musical nuggets.