I’m not particularly a massive fan of country music and by extension alternative country compositions, but to be fair, Heath Cullen and The 45 sure do have a good solid punt at it with their new album.
When you’re used to the deep moving chronicles that partner indie-folk, the raw attention of psychedelic rock or the purely stiff vibrations of the electro-nightmare we now live in, it’s difficult to become invested in the lo-fi sounds that stream from this album, let alone begin to understand the sheer genius and amount of labour it takes to make songs sound simple, clean and settled.
Hailing from Northern NSW, Heath Cullen and The 45 exhibit the type of maturity that can be respected and could inspire many others, telling tragic small-town stories with amazing cohesion and command.
Cullen has managed to tie a low-key approach – being almost unvaried in delivery – with a strong instrumental backing and still make it agreeable. If I didn’t know better, which most of the time I don’t, I would say the clever musicality of Cullen’s songs somehow playfully mock the lyrics in his love-torn ballads. Interweaving lead guitars arranged around obscure feathery piano tones watch on as Cullen plots his lonesome journey in songs like ‘Break My Heart’ and ‘Your Love is the Sea’. The entire album evidences the experience and control needed to make a slide of incompatible pieces sit together uniformly; something that only comes when a band has been around the traps for a long while.
To be honest, there is a somewhat haunting feeling that comes from this album, and maybe even Cullen’s baritone. You’ve got to be patient, as it doesn’t offer up the catchy choruses that you seem to hang on the edge of your seat for. Perhaps that is Cullen’s intention. When a storm comes you want to feel rattled and slightly broken but here you don’t, you don’t feel nothin’. The lyrics in ‘Kathleen’ and ‘Woke with the Birds’ naturally evoke the kind of imagery that could stir the soul, but it is never over-explored, leaving you with an anti-climax.
However, A Storm Was Coming But I Didn’t Feel Nothing has teased my tongue with a new taste for country music, something I never thought I’d admit.
