The Hypnotiser is music to you rub your tired eyes to, to shake your groggy head and try to piece together the night before.
Throughout the second album from blues mistress and her aptly titled Last Drinks, booze becomes a character in its own right. It skulks throughout songs like an alcoholic father ruefully arriving home late at night.
“Maybe I should sit back down and finish this drink in front of me,’ Savage’s brawny purr wonders on ‘Something Better’.
‘Bareknuckle Boogie’ summons the fury of an Ennio Morricone western soundtrack, to tell a story of a violent booze-fuelled night.
This album has dulled some of the country twang that percolated through Savage’s debut, Wolf. She has again enlisted producer Nick Finch of Graveyard Train, which is proving a fertile pairing.
Together on The Hypnotiser they have achieved a richer sound than previously; traded banjo licks for a gospel choir.
Savage’s storytelling is drily Australian. On ‘95km To Sandy Beach’ she sings in the voice of an unwitting driver who picked up a hitchhiking Black Saturday arsonist, a true story the singer was told by a man she stumbled across in a country dive bar.
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Following in, ‘Early Morning Come Down Blues’ turns from a relatively simple blues arrangement, into a powerful but slightly off-kilter jam. The choir chimes in, sounding like a drunken Cat Power, if she had been up all night arm wrestling Muddy Waters.
The Hypnotiser is proof that Cash Savage can growl, mourn and drink alongside some of the best of them.
