Paul Dempsey
Everything Is True
(EMI)

Paul Dempsey: even if you’ve not heard the name, you’ve doubtless heard the music. As the singer and guitarist in Something for Kate for sixteen years, his tunes have become something of a fixture in the Australian music landscape, even if his outfit are perennially consigned to sub-headliners on a festival bill. Still, they’re on a major label, have platinum albums and sell-out tours, and inspire the kind of rabid fanbase that go out and start bands themselves. Which is more than a lot of rock bands this side of Powderfinger can tick off.  

I for one really like Dempsey’s husky baritone, and with a decade and a half behind them, SFK have enough good songs to fill out an entertaining live set. That said, I wasn’t exactly begging for a Dempsey solo outing. Such is the legacy of the Josh Pyke’s of this country that the ghosts of mediocre Australian singer-songwriters haunt every disc I see with a single male name on the cover. So strong was their cautioning presence that I’d literally forgotten how much I enjoyed Dempsey’s humble solo set at Splendour 2008 because basically, I expected to be bored. I didn’t want the guy to fail, but I was ready to not like this album.  

But I do.

For starters, it’s hard to entirely hate something with Dempsey’s earlier-pimped vocals all over it. They’re not smooth and not perfect; Tom Waits he ain’t quite, but Dempsey has a tonne of character that helps keep these songs from straying into light, countrified pop territory. Most people checking out this album are likely SFK fans with a healthy grasp of his identifiable set of pipes, but it’s still a surprise just how much they can carry when re-positioned in more MOR arrangements.
 
Speaking of vocals, Dempsey is thankfully wise enough to know that a laid-back album doesn’t mean his vocals should be uniformly, unwaveringly laid-back and expressionless. Sometimes straining, shifting between single- and double-tracked, occasionally shouting and making the jump into his head voice – this is music that you won’t break a sweat over, but it's no campfire session either. What's more, Dempsey's finding a range here that previous Something For Kate efforts haven't quite allowed.

Granted, it’s a little unfair to compare Australia’s troubadours against this album since it’s not simply the acoustic affair lead single ‘Out of the Airlock’ painted up. The acoustic guitar does dominate the palette, but Dempsey fills out the arrangements one-man-band style by overdubbing drums, bass, licks and organs himself. Dempsey and engineer Wayne Connelly have done well at making this often-stilted approach of totalitarianism sound quite natural and loose. Were it not for the undemocratic sound you call almost mistake this for a proper band.

On the surface the songs are pleasant and inoffensive; they don’t demand undivided attention but they also don’t invite harsh criticism. But with repeated listens, Dempsey's knack for double-meanings, tricky couplets and hints at a bigger, offscreen picture bubble away in the wings. There’s more slide guitar than I needed, as Dempsey occasionally stumbles into exploring the tropes of the troublesome country-tinged rock genre a la Bernard Fanning’s solo effort. But tunes like ‘Bats,’ ‘Have You Fallen Out Of Love?’ and ‘Ramona Was A Waitress’ suggest why the man can still sell out solo shows in a matter of minutes, and with minimal advertising; there's a well-honed craft here, one that perhaps is now just (unfairly) assumed from Dempsey after 15 years or so of writing songs everyone knows.

Everything is True is music for a certain mood and a certain setting, and the album should only further find a place in stereos/iPod docks as summer approaches. Nothing on here rivals Something For Kate’s best stuff, but then it hints too at somewhere Something For Kate have never gone. Proof perhaps that Dempsey's spot in Australian music folklore is still expanding.  

Matt Hickey