Track Reviews // Alex Cameron - Divorce


2nd Single from Miami Memory (Secretly Canadian, 13th September, 2019)

Australian pop prince Alex Cameron has announced his upcoming 3rd album Miami Memory with new single Divorce; a return to the rough and disarming sincerity that led his seedy night club realism into the triumphant light of heartland rock on 2017s Forced Witness.

With the maximal pianos, jiving bass and 80s gated reverb on the driving snares blended with typically cynical and shameless genius in the lyrics, it’s a far cry from previous single Miami Memory which left a few fans scratching virtual heads. Unlike the jarring, turbo-charged balladry of the first single, this track has the distinct aroma of Elton John fronting the Electric Light Orchestra on a misanthropic karaoke rampage in the bar from Billy Joel’s Piano Man; John at the bar shouting through bitter tears that the next round’s on the house.

Like fellow antipodeans Kirin J. Callinan and Connan Mockasin it’s a genuinely riveting vocal drenched in ironic flair that catapults Alex Cameron’s vintage rock sound into the forefront of listeners’ heads. Rasping like Bruce Springsteen and brimming over with emotion that reflects Cameron’s assertions that these are “true stories…specific but never esoteric…graphic but never offensive”.

He liquifies these brutally quotidian observations with a casually hilarious turn of phrase and spikes it with Jonathan Rado’s (of Foxygen, Father John Misty and Weyes Blood fame) quirky but upbeat production. It's a concoction that’ll have “with a motherfuckin’ FUTON COUCH” going round in your head until Miami Memory drops on Sept 13th.

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