THE WHITLAMS
Love This City
by James Russell

Tim Freedman returns with another swag of damnably good tunes in the form of the Whitlams' new album Love This City. Once again "benevolent dictator" Tim is pretty much the only connecting thread through the album, as the band itself features a shape-shifting cast from one song to the next; from memory, Chris Abrahams is the only presence from Eternal Nightcap other than Freedman himself to carry over from the previous disc to this one. Following the success of Eternal Nightcap-highest-selling independent Australian album in 23 years, lest we forget-Tim found himself with an actual recording budget, and much has been made of the album's expansive production job that the extra money entailed. A few heavy friends-including Marcia Hines, Jackie Orszaczky and Garry Gary Beers from INXS-join Tim on the album, along with the controversial return of those motherfuckers on motorcycles from Machine Gun Fellatio. Let's take a tour of the music, then.

Love This City opens with "Make The World Safe", featuring something like a hundred individual tape tracks as Tim forms his own multitracked massed choir. The sheer size of the sound is a bit daunting at first compared to Eternal Nightcap; the song is quite pleasant but the sound does take a bit of getting used to. For an opener it threw me off balance slightly. "Thank You (For Loving Me At My Worst)" continues the big sound thing, allied this time to an old-fashioned, Burt Bacharach- ish swinging tune; a well-timed pop number that's understandably been made a single.

"Chunky Chunky Air Guitar", Freedman's latest collaboration with Machine Gun Fellatio (previously responsible for part of "No Aphrodisiac" and a remix of "I Make Hamburgers") is dispensed with, perhaps sensibly, as only track three of the album. This is a song people either love or hate, and most of them seem to come down in the latter category. Even Tim Freedman has admitted it may have been a bit too self-indulgent and possibly a mistake. Personally I like it-as Tim still does-and you have to admit that the video was seriously funny. Still, probably just as well that it appears so early in the album's course, to get it out of the way for its detractors to get on with the rest of the disc in comfort. "Pretty As You" features a heavy brass section co-ordinated by Jackie Orszaczky, along with what Tim calls "the album's heaviest guitar section". Somehow, though, it didn't make an awful lot of impression on me.

The nearly title track "You Gotta Love This City" follows, with Marcia Hines on backing vocals, contributing to the initial impression of the song as a slice of super-slick, ultra-modern but lifeless soul; the song's a bit too long and could probably have done without a few of the "love this city" refrains to shorten it, though these seem to have been a deliberate ironic strategy on Tim's part to hide the verses and their mildly anti-Olympics theme (even though he has tickets to some events). The subtly described suicide of the song's protagonist was apparently inspired by Kenneth Slessor's poem "Five Bells", and I like the five bell-chimes that end the song in acknowledgement.

Next up are "God Drinks At The Sando" and "Blow Up The Pokies", the former dated 1997, the latter dated 1999, his "Sandringham Hotel series" to match the three "Charlie" songs on the previous albums. I get the feeling that "God" would've been a far more upbeat song on Eternal Nightcap than it is here; the evidently "up" nature of the lyrics is belied by the feet-dragging listlessness of the performance. That's not a criticism of the playing, just an illustration of it; it could've been more uptempo, but I suppose the poker machines don't inspire that lighter feel. The immortal Louis Burdett guests on drums. "Blow Up The Pokies" is one of the album's high points, an epically balladic number whose production was designed as a deliberate exercise in excess, "a Moving Pictures 'What About Me' for the 90s" with big strings and percussion. It's a brilliant song which frankly doesn't deserve its unfortunate, bluntly over-obvious title.

"400 Miles From Darwin" is next. Previously surfacing on the "Melbourne" single two years ago, this reworking and expansion was suggested by another flare-up of events in East Timor after the Dili massacre which inspired it to begin with. My memory of this earlier version is hazy, though I don't suppose it was anywhere near as epic as it now is. I suppose only time will tell whether or not it continues to be politically relevant, as it undeniably was when this version was released as the first taste of the new album. "Time" follows, pleasing enough, yet somehow still the song which made the least impression on me. Even after repeated listenings this was the only song whose tune I couldn't think of; all the others I have no trouble recalling. Jackie Orszaczky returns as brass section co-ordinator.

"Made Me Hard" is a cover of a song by Bernie Hayes, brother of late Whitlams co-founder Stevie Plunder. Haven't heard the original version but it'd have a hard time beating Tim's performance. "High Ground" is a soul number, like many of the songs on the album, with a powerful swing to it; Tim has admitted this is about the fairly hideous murder investigation he was briefly caught up in somehow earlier in the year. "Unreliable", written by Chris Abrahams, is the album's shortest track, clocking in at two minutes twenty-nine; the whole album has some great lyrics but this song has perhaps the most felicitous lines: "it would be my luck/She only likes me when she gets drunk/And lately she's been thinking/Of giving up drinking".

"Her Floor Is My Ceiling" provides the album's effective climax, with big drums and big strings going off in another big balladic production job. Freedman calls it the album's most impressive aural moment, and I'd agree with that statement. "There's No-One", about the joys of not having to be responsible to anyone else, is a fine song of which to wind down the album.

Love This City is a strong release and a fine achievement. The big production helps more than it hinders, although on a couple of tracks it does render things with too clinical a sound for my liking. Even after a few listens, the size of the sound of "Make The World Safe" still takes me aback, though you do adjust to it and the album flows more smoothly as it progresses; the second half, contrary to many albums, is probably better than the first. If you threw up your hands in horror when you first heard "Air Guitar" and wondered what drugs Tim Freedman was on now, don't be deterred… the rest of the album's completely different.

Finally, a word about the secret track on the first pressing of the album. If you haven't been fast enough to get the first limited edition, then you actually haven't missed much: all it is, is an 8½-minute slice of audio verité, bits of conversation and the like from the album sessions, such as apparently also accompanied early pressings of Eternal Nightcap. It's amusing to an extent (Louis Burdett kicks things off by observing how many people are surprised to find he's a real person and not just some character created by Tim Freedman), but doesn't really bear too many repeated listens. If you've only got your hands on a later pressing without the secret track, then don't worry, there's no great vanished masterpiece involved…