CD reviews: Ian Moss: Let’s All Get Together – 65

Ian Moss: Let’s All Get Together

From: Liberation/Universal/Australia
Style: Rootsy soul
Music: 3.5/5
Sound: 4/5

I’ve always despised the Aussie pub rock sound, and Cold Chisel have to be top of my least liked Aussie rockers, along with their painfully adenoidal former singer, Jimmy Barnes. And yet Cold Chisel’s principal songwriter, Ian Moss, after all these years, has fashioned an album that’s most enjoyable. The latest outing in the Liberation label’s more or less acoustic series sees Moss wrap his tonsils around a bunch of generally soulful songs, and unlike the epiglottal ‘soul’ disasters of Barnsey, this is very tasteful. Most importantly for hi-fi heads, except for a smattering of live recordings, the majority of Let’s All Get Together is a wonderful recording: full-spectrum, and so resonant that you really feel like Moss is in the room when you close your eyes. Song-wise, it’s a mixture of new originals, covers (do we really need another version of ‘Georgia On My Mind’?) and even an acoustic Chisel remake, just for all those middle-aged bogans out there with screaming tinnitus.

Gary Steel