Dan Kelly - Dan Kelly's Dream

15 July 2010 by Max Easton

Having achieved success with the Alpha Males' much loved albums 'Pirate Radio' and 'Drowning in the Fountain of Youth,' Dan Kelly, the Melbourne man with the falsetto, has released his second solo album, 'Dan Kelly's Dream.' With his characteristic screamingly high vocals and endless quirks, Dan Kelly has once again shown exactly what has made him such a staple on Australian airwaves.

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Dan Kelly sure knows how to keep busy as a musician. Hitting radio in 2003 with his first solo release "Countermeal Kim", he then progressed to front the Alpha Males - sitting consistently on the airwaves as a result - whilst touring and recording with his uncle Paul Kelly on guitar and harmonies. So he's been a busy man; participating in a series of fantastic albums either his own or his uncle's, but with his latest album Dan Kelly's Dream, he's showing no signs fatigue. With this record, Kelly turns a congested seven year recording career into a fantastic release to start off the new decade. He's tapped into some bizarre themes, toyed with a series of influences and painted some surreal lyrical pictures, all with that voice that can sit about thirty octaves higher than the peak of the man on the street's vocal range. It's as triumphant as anything he's done prior and for the listener, it's a real treat.

The first thing that strikes you about this album are the quirky, nigh on bizarre track titles. From Classical DJ at Dandenong Station to Poisoned Estuary Jam and that much-talked-about radio hit, Bindi Irwin Apocalypse Jam, it's easy to imagine that this album is a comedy record. But with lyrics mostly dealing with the many perspectives of watching the planet die in front of your eyes, this is a record with a thinly disguised serious theme. In a way, this manner of song-writing mirrors the sometimes flippant attitude to the environment that runs through political and social circles, and serves to highlight a point rather than shy away from it. The election's coming and the environment is no longer fashionable, so of course we'd all jam under the sea with Bindi Irwin once the caps melt; if turning the other way bamboozles Dan Kelly, then Dan Kelly will respond in kind once it all comes down around him. It's a refreshing take on song-writing, but even if you're just casually listening in the background with no lyrical concern, it still holds up musically to be continually entertaining.

Amongst these bizarre-at-the-surface tracks are other great tales like Thinkin' Bout Alien City Blues, a sprawling tale of a factory worker's daydream about an alien factory worker and the beautifully played, beautifully told post-high school tale Gap Year Blues. The latter is especially nicely sung, contrasting against the more spoken word tracks like the appropriately dreamy Dan Kelly's Dream, and the joyous Hold On, I'm Coming On. Each and every track is played in a unique fashion, with layers of harmonies and unusual instrumentation swimming around behind the stories that in some cases, have never been told. 

Probably the most interesting thing about the album is that it's not so much genre-defying as it is accepting of all; it's gnostic to the anti-genre's atheist...whatever that means. There are aspects of folk, rock n roll, classic rock, indie, soul and world genres without ever explicitly saying 'I am a genre track.' It makes for a complex and interesting record that like the best albums, has you discovering something new on every listen. In a time where everyone bemoans the lack of originality in music, Dan Kelly burns the rule books and lets each song become whatever it wants to become. Phil Spector's wall of sound is there, but it's come a long way since he sat four guitarists around a microphone to play the same part. Kelly's tracks have a deep ambience interspersed with pieces of sound in odd places, that are never oddly out of place, making for what is a truly interesting album.

June and July have been unusually good months for Australian music this year, and Dan Kelly has just gone and added another piece of magic to a string of albums by Australian artists that has you wondering what these bastards have been drinking. With Dan Kelly's Dreams, he's again proved himself as one of the country's finest songwriters and will by all means continue on the path of sonic pleasure which has led him to this point.

Dan Kelly's Dream is out on the July 16th on Shock Records.

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