:: Between Here

The Hired Guns

This is a Melbourne band and it’s their debut album. The band has been around the scene for several years and adopts a 70s style. There are twelve tracks and the five band members all contribute to songwriting elements. It’s a varied mix of styles – country, rock and blues. It’s a bit of Cowboy Junkies, Red House Painters and Neil Young. Slow and steady tempos punctuate the whole album, befitting the melancholy of the songs. The lyrics are evocative and burn like a soul spent from loneliness and heartbreak. Listening to “Dead of Night”, “Blue Sunday” and “Somewhere” is like being stranded in desolate terrain still carrying the baggage of an estranged relationship meanwhile pain gives way to numbness and spirited fatalism in “Lend Me Your Gun” and “Are You Gonna Leave Her At The Church”. It’s a mature body of work by artists Chris Willard, Adam Spellicy, Anthony Paine, Timothy Deane and David Creese that form Hired Guns. That said, Between Here and The Night might be too bleak for some listeners.