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The Real Thing |
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The Real Thing
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The Real Thing |
With Midnight Oil's live album (Scream in Blue) and their first "greatest hits" collection (20,000 Watt R.S.L.), it might seem strange to learn of the band releasing yet another concert album of past favorites. However, there are a few important distinctions:
1) The Real Thing has four new songs straight from the studio,
2) all these live songs are from the band's more subtle acoustic performances, and
3) it is one of the most definitive collections the band has ever recorded.
No lie, even this album's version of "Truganini" alone is worth every peek in. With a breath-taking sense of acoustic orchestration and Rob Hirst's peerless drumming backbone, it is a wonder the band hadn't thought to release a live album like this before. There is virtually no false step in this entire event. "The Dead Heart" sounds utterly magnificent, injecting restrained aboriginal majesty into one of the band's most over-played songs. The fact that it also leads delightfully into 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1's beautifully eerie "Tin Legs and Tin Mines" without making either feel out-of-place is stunning. However, "In the Valley" (taken from the band's MTV Unplugged show) is the most telling: completely subverted into a piano-led solo instead of the original's searing peaks, Peter Garrett vocalizes the loss of the recent death of a loved one with such vulnerability it is nothing less than astonishing.
So with this in mind, are the new studio tracks even worthwhile or just...distractions? Well, both "Say Your Prayers" and "The Last of the Diggers" retain the renewed vitriol of albums like Redneck Wonderland, yet more with the natural tones of Earth and Sun and Moon this time around. Also, the unpredictable title-track (a cover of Australian legend Johnny Young) simply sounds fantastic. It comes across as slightly strange, very angry, and quite lovely. One may feel that The Real Thing as a whole might lack the sheer onslaught of a more varied, "plugged" Midnight Oil), but even an embittered listener would have to admit that the band are first and foremost a live group - no matter the incarnation. Because to showcase such strengths in this enormously rewarding collection of acoustic live selections is a welcome open door for a casual listener as well as a blowing kiss to long-time, loyal fans.
4.5 out of 5.
Reviewer: Dean Carlson