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Reviewed for The Dwarf

Rowland S. Howard is one of those perennial Australian musicians that has survived a rock & roll lifestyle and like his contemporaries Nick Cave, Kim Salmon and Tex Perkins is still conjuring up life affirming and in most cases fantastic new music. Pop Crimes sees him tackling his second solo album and it is a cohesive, haunting and darkly contagious set of songs from the one time boy next door.

The artwork is a dead giveaway about what to expect from the music it encases. It features a slightly quizzical looking Howard bathed in blood red light and in ominous shadow. Inside are some brilliant portraits of Howard with only his foreground hands in focus, accomplices Mick Harvey and J.P. Shilo as well as Jonine Standish who he duets with on the boy/girl song (I Know) A Girl Called Jonny.

That song opens up the album with a Twin Peaks swaying tale of doomed love. Standish possesses a fine sultry, slurred voice all purr and pout like a softer Chrissie Hynde. It sets the template for the lounge noir shimmer that gives everything on the album a hazy warmth. Shut Me Down heads further into classic croon territory with Howard repeating the line ‘I missed you so much…’

A Talk Talk cover isn’t the most obvious route for Howard but he transforms their classic Life’s What You Make It into a much more menacing statement than the original. It stalks the speakers and prowls like a caged animal, threatening but not able to step outside its immediate surroundings. The positivity of the original is given a dark makeover that works brilliantly, especially the way that the ominous bass line trudges on and on, unchanging throughout the song.

Wayward Man includes a great squealing guitar line and steers toward to the gothic charm of compatriot Nick Cave. The song stomps along belligerently with Howard almost proudly singing ‘I’m the fly in your ointment / Your constant disappointment / Just because I can / I’m your wayward man.

Throughout Pop Crimes Howard constantly impresses with his deep rich voice, drastically contrasting his frail and wasted looking exterior. It lends a dark authenticity to the words he is singing and adds a resolute mood of determination and intent to the whole album. The gloriously named The Golden Age Of Bloodshed places him as a sermonising preacher warning of dark times ahead and ends the album as strongly as it began.

Across its 40 minutes Pop Crimes reaffirms Howard’s place as one of Australia’s great songwriters; unwavering in his preference for the musically darker side of the tracks and the down and out and destitute corners of the soul.