Lady Of The Sunshine – Smoking Gun

About this time last year, Angus Stone and sister Julia released one of the year's melodic gems A Book Like This. Liable to be somewhat eclipsed by the much larger and direct personality of his sister, especially when performing live, his contributions were nevertheless the most dreamily infectious of the tunes on their previous combined effort. Now Angus emerges with a 'solo' album - Govinda Doyle provides drums and bass under the perhaps wilfully obfuscated Lady Of The Sunshine banner. Have no fear however - there is no back story of family strife. They performed separately before uniting, and a new album from the pair is due later in the year. After being based in the UK for the recording of A Book Like This and then and a belly full of touring, this album was cut back home in six weeks in a disused water tank in Northern Queensland.Smoking Gun comprises two main flavours spliced together. The first is entirely as expected - the tender and hypnotic low-key folk-rock strumming of the shy and retiring cracked-voiced Angus we know and love. They never quite flower into the kind of winning poppy chorus climaxes of his previous songs, preserving a more solitary mood and somehow whimsically contemplative distance. On these tracks only an occasional string arrangement or child's choir acts as a reminder that he's doing all this for you - rather than just having a moment relaxing at home in a corner with his guitar. There is a sense that these are the shuffling songs that weren't high profile enough to fight their way onto A Book Like This. If so, they do deserve their chance here in a more restrained, brooding, setting, but I suspect most were written subsequently. Closing track 'Lady Sunshine' is an almost Donovanesque dalliance with a rhythmic Eastern acoustic sound - a welcome drop of lightness and warmth as a farewell from the previously uniformly darker recesses of Stone's mind. That must have been one dark and dingy water tank.The second and unpredicted style is revealed on track three - a sudden eruption of sludgy and completely hum-drum bluesy rock: 'White Rose Parade'. The album has been mixed to accommodate these variations in attack, which generally means that the rock has been toned down. Combined with Angus's natural reticence (he never quite gets worked up enough for the periodic vocal screams to sound appropriate or in any way anxious), and some routine lyrics, they fail to shake off the atmosphere of an apologetic jam. Maybe live they would be delivered with some gusto; otherwise it would be a good time to get a beer/go for a slash. The title track is another washed out 'prod me when it's over' nadir.However, drawing back from those lows, in fact there is a third category present formed by songs that bridge the gap in styles. The adultery, murder and withdrawal into madness of 'Jack Nimble' especially, and 'Dead Man's Train', effectively combine the mood of his more subtle instrumental and vocal efforts with some flourishes of wired guitar. 'The Wolf' is more upbeat, and 'Kings Black Magic' injects some real bluesy balls at last if hamstrung by an overly repetitive chorus.My initial impressions were almost entirely of feeling underwhelmed after approaching with high expectations. A more lengthy interaction with the album has found me warming to the creeping tunefulness of Stone's song craft, if tempered by a less than gripping set of lyrics, 'Big Jet Plan' being a case in point. As Meatloaf sang, "Two out of three ain't bad". I almost wish I didn't know that, but I did have a thing for Ellen Foley at the time. Another reason to have envied Mick Jones. Lady Sunshine indeed. But that's another story. 66%Lady Of The Sunshine on MySpace