Adding His Own Special Fuel to the Fire: Mick Harvey's Interpretation on Two of Diamonds

On another tribute to Australian songsmiths, Mick Harvey’s Two of Diamonds finds the Birthday Party/Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds member dousing these Aussie tidbits (plus others) with his own special fuel. Harvey’s accelerant is at once an indelible dark depth and an imported Americana.

Harvey’s approach to Chris Bailey’s (The Saints) “Photograph” is to make it the aural equivalent of a smoldering ember about to flash and spark if something else is thrown into the fire ring. Harvey doesn’t throw anything else into the ring to cause the spark; that’s not his role. He brings the sand-banked coals, the restrained burst, a brooding that could be mistaken for boredom until you realize it just burned your heart with its passion. That’s the first part of Harvey’s fuel.

Harvey, then, mixes a bluesy echo of when country was becoming rock ‘n’ roll on the U.S.’s Bill Withers’ (“Lean on Me,” “Just the Two of Us”) “I Don’t Want You on My Mind.” The track is recorded with a haunting lilt making it seem even more as if coming through an old radio still receiving broadcasts from Memphis in the 50’s.

Australian band The Loved One’s “Sad Dark Eyes” has a classic rock meets folk in a California canyon sound as if another chapter in “House of the Rising Sun.” In that same canyon, Harvey meets up with Emmylou Harris’ “Here I Am” driving on those valley roads with a voice that comes as close as you might imagine a male voice can to Harris’ beauty.

Harvey lays down a drone like the Swans on James Cruickshank’s “No Doubt” and PJ Harvey’s (no relation) “Slow-Motion Movie Star,” where pop harmonies are given just a little bit of light by the piano.

In the album’s “Gospel section,” the fire really begins to break out of control on the blues drenched “Everything is Fixed” (David McComb & the Triffids) which is about being in the same jail cell as Jesus who is locked up on trumped up charges.

The Gospel steadily burns behind the Law’s smoke on “A Walk on the Wild Side” (originally performed by R&B singer Brook Benton, written by Mack David / Elmer Bernstein) with its admonishment for those who pray on Sunday but forget God the rest of the week (One day of prayin' and six nights of fun/The odds against going to heaven, six-to-one).

Thanks to Mick Harvey and Mute Records for the review CD.