TEX PERKINS & THE DARK HORSES – TEX PERKINS & THE DARK HORSES

Thug, Lubricated Goat, Salamader Jim – only those who lived through (and survived) the Sydney live music scene in the 1980’s will even remember the names, let alone the music and the live performances. That the same man that menaced, growled and generally tore apart stages fronting those bands is the man fronting Tex Perkins & the Dark Horses is hard to fathom unless you’ve been along for the whole journey. That you could call this either Tex Perkins’ fourth solo album, or the second Dark Horses’ album, gives an inkling of how the man just evolves, one thing emerges into another rather than moving from project to project. What is certain is that this eponymous album will go down as one of Tex’s best. Alongside the brilliant guitar playing of Charlie Owen, and with Joel Silersher and Murray Paterson, our own man in black has refined laid-back into a musical art-form. There are future Perkin’s classics everywhere So Much Older, Life Gets in the Way, You Haunt Me, Everything Is Gonna Be Alright…there is not a moments filler here. That they can kick off with a the Stonesy What Do You Want Now? and make cruise as well as Mick & Keef says something. As smooth as the finest top shelf bourbon, and a darn sight sweeter.

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