Style(s): Country , Rock

KASEY CHAMBERS - Wayward Angel
In early 2004, Kasey Chambers announced to the world that she was naming her third album Wayward Angel - and this title, for the follow-up to 2002's Barricades & Brickwalls, instantly felt like a natural fit. Wayward Angel is a self-referential moniker which sums up the sugar'n'spice of this most singular Australian performer - a choice of phrase which cups in its hand Kasey's past, present and future and which, importantly, puts her sense of herself right up front.

A little bit gritty, partly born of tradition, partly of the times. More than a little bit country, with a healthy dose of rock & roll.

Wayward Angel, as ever with Chambers' work, is a songwriter's album. Sure there are hits, in the same way that "Not Pretty Enough" proved the breakthrough on Barricades. (Chief amongst them here are songs like "Stronger", "Bluebird" and "Hollywood".) But Wayward Angel is a honed statement - a true album which also manages plenty of light and shade, moving effortlessly through Kasey's maturing moods.

"I think I'm much more of an album artist, rather than having big radio songs," says the singer/songwriter. "I think that's what's allowed me to build [an audience] up til now, and that's the way we're going with this album too."

Kasey named this record after the only song on the album written for her infant son. Anyone who's followed her amazing trajectory will already know her life has changed immeasurably during recent years - moving through her stunning debut as a solo artist to the true establishment of herself as a music-making force, relocating from the locales of her childhood and adolescence to start a new life and family on the central coast of NSW. All of these factors have been crucial in bringing Kasey to the creation of a brand new album that's a brand new chapter - pivotal and forward looking.

The record opens with "Pony" - an infectious first cut featuring the baritone guitar of Shawn Colvin/Eagles alumni Steuart Smith. "We named the guitar Barry," Kasey laughs, "Barry the Baritone. I just knew I wanted my album to start with that guitar - it's just the coolest guitar sound in the world."

"Hollywood" follows, one of the last songs Kasey wrote before the Wayward Angel sessions. "This is not Hollywood," she sings, "there is no camera in my room... This is not Hollywood, this is my life." Together with "For Sale" (in the album's second half), the pair of tracks deals with fame and with Kasey's position as a public figure.

She's certainly not tetchy about the fact that she's become a recognisable face: more than many artists, she truly treasures her audience. "I'm really lucky to be in the position I'm in," Kasey says. "I would never want to seem like I'm complaining. I don't get mobbed and when people come up and talk to me they're always really nice." But for a relaxed gal like Kasey, for whom fame has never been the end prize, songs like these provide a place to reflect: "You can buy my life on radio, order me by mail, not everything about me is for sale."

"Stronger" has more than a touch of the rollicking side of Lucinda Williams about it. And that's neither surprising (given Kasey's strong relationship with Americana's first lady) nor disappointing. A big stonking clarion call of a song, it is built from its core around Chambers' familiar band structure, with a good dose of Hammond thrown in.

These welcome organ sounds on Wayward Angel (courtesy of Clayton Doley) are exemplary of tweaks to Kasey's usual arrangement style - little shifts in instrumental mood which arose when she and producer/brother Nash put their heads together in the studio. Like on "Paper Aeroplane" - the beautiful, sorrowful lament of an old man who has lost his wife, perfectly rendered with nothing more than vocal by Kasey and piano by leading Australian player Bill Risby.

There are three songs on the album co written with Kasey's real life partner. "I don't usually co write with people, I find it a bit difficult. I guess we could write together [in this instance] because we feel so comfortable with each other." The collaboration spawned, notably, "More Than Ordinary", a track defined by a soft but strong chorus hook which underpins the questions of a rejected lover: "Was I ever really more than ordinary? ... Did you ever need me like I need you now?" But before the inevitable queries surface about how Kasey and her beau could write such a heartbreak song together, Chambers laughs and says that the track just kind of "fell out".

"Not every song is always written about what's going on right now. Sometimes you're thinking back to something that happened a while ago. Or sometimes you're not even putting yourself into the situation - it could be about someone else."

Such statements are testimony to Kasey's song writing maturity. Like her idol and occasional collaborator Paul Kelly, she takes an observational step back in many of her songs. And also like Kelly and many of her other heroes - like Fred Eaglesmith, Patti Griffin or Matthew Ryan - she has a particular knack for using the most simplistic language in the most evocative fashion, turning everyday phrases into poetry and managing familiarity without clich

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