RON. S. PENO AND THE SUPERSTITIONS – FUTURE UNIVERSE

There is a certain irony in releasing your fist solo album after 30 years in the business and calling it Future Universe. If Ronny’s future isn’t now, then, no disrespect intended, it better be damn soon, time is running out (in this lifetime anyway). Not that he hasn’t had a wonderful output to date. In recent times his work with Kim Salmon as Darling Downs has kept the fans happy, while Died Pretty’s two decades together produced some fine albums  – including the classic Doughboy Hollow – and on their night there was not a better live band in the country. Future Universe will not throw up too many surprises for DP fans. Teaming here with Cam Bulter from Silver Ray, the sound is not unfamiliar. Died Pretty’s first release was Mirror Blues, and Peno mirrors this by opening his solo debut with PS Blues, a classically brooding Peno number that maintains the suspense the whole way through. But he then tells us he has My Own Fire To Light and proceeds to do so with an increased use of strings, and more ballads than a younger Iggy Pop inspired Ron Peno would ever have imagined. While Butler’s guitar work is at times reminiscent of Died Pretty’s Brett Myers, he has a lighter side, and that allows Peno to croon more often then he crows. I Wish is the closest to something from Doughboy Hollow, and Livewire is a funky 60’s organ driven number that shows there is life in the ol’ boy yet.

*** 1/2