GRAVEYARD TRAIN – HOLLOW

Graveyard Train’s shtick is not a hard one to comprehend. The Melbourne-based sextet sing of sermons, drinking and gold over a backing of stomping country and bluegrass. The tongue is firmly in cheek, but the band have side-stepped pretentiousness by telling tales of universal themes such as death, despair and the supernatural. Hollow Wind reminds us of the inevitability of our demise, while I’m Gone relays the pains of unrequited love. However, the music itself is the real winner on Hollow – catchy chants and seedy blues licks make the album almost impossible to not enjoy, ironically or otherwise. The Sermon recalls the song Rawhide from The Blues Brothers, but with more banjo-plucking. Likewise, The Priest sounds like ZZ Top in slow motion, all slide guitar and gravelly baritone voices. The Doomsday Cult Blues is a bit too close to Nick Cave for comfort, and occasionally the vocal work eerily replicates that of Johnny Cash, but anybody listening to Graveyard Train for authenticity and innovation surely needs to wake up and smell the… whiskey? Tobacco smoke? I dunno – insert your own country-and-western-style analogy here. ***