Purity Of Essence – Hoodoo Gurus (Sony)

Hoodoo Gurus probably had more chance of making a sustained “comeback” than any band of their era, simply because they were never a band “of their era”. Even when they were dominating 80’s and 90’s rock radio in Australia they were always flavoured with the essence of retro and thus when they release an album in 2010 they don’t need to worry about sounding dated.

They do sound dated but they always did and it was never something to worry about.

Given that the Gurus decorate the album art for this new release with images including panel vans, Paul Hogan (as “Hoges”), greyhounds, tractors and early versions of exercise bikes,  they  clearly aren’t too perturbed about relying on the retro vibe yet again.

Really its just comes down to the songs and Dave Faulkner has come up with plenty enough good ones here to amply justify the exercise. Crackin’ Up has already found favour on the radio and it’s a good rock n’ roll song but its probably eclipsed by the rollicking What’s In It For Me as the albums primo rocker. A Few Home Truths isn’t far behind.

The album is produced by Charles Fisher and the band and together they do a good job of avoiding fixing what’s not broken.  There’s flourishes of horns on a couple of tracks and some nice female backing vocals on a couple of others but really its about guitars bass and drums. One of the songs with the brass and the bv’s is Only In America which takes a very cool groove and kind of lets it down with a fairly predictable rant.

The requisite drinking song Somebody Take Me Home Tonight is also fairly predictable but its “good predictable”, in that it captures the familiarity of the local with good cheer and resignation.

One of the more unusual songs is I Hope You’re Happy which actually recalls a 70’s Greg Macainsh/Skyhooks song with Faulkner lamenting friends who try to re-invent their stalled lives via new religions, cosmetic surgery or transcendental meditation. It’s funny and angry at the same time.

There’s no doubting the value for money here – 16 new songs and a live DVD for under twenty bucks. There’s a few songs on here that would sneak on to a Hoodoo Gurus ‘best of’ and very few that don’t serve any useful purpose. With a strike rate along those lines there’s no reason why they shouldn’t keep releasing albums on a regular basis.