- Little Songs For Big People is the second album from indie-folk-pop storyteller Harley Young and his band the Haymakers. It follow's 2015's Flinders Parade, an album that was geographically tied to the north-eastern suburbs of Brisbane which Harley at the time called home. Since then though he has been living in London and now resides in Melbourne. It seems a new songwriting direction may be on the cards too.
There are still some links you can find to those northern suburbs. Barina Jean discovers the titular character "shootin' up the Bruce like you don't know where you're going". Mostly though it's in those sunny, jangly chords reminiscent of what was once called "the Brisbane sound".
At the risk of journalistic cliche, there is -at times- a likeness to Robert Forster's Go-Betweens tunes, especially in Golden Song, where Harley's half-spoken baritone is delivering literary puns. The album is in fact produced by later-era Go-Betweens member John Willsteed.
The songs certainly still evoke a sense of suburbia. Even if it's no longer specific to the geographical place where Harley grew up it's still the era: all TV Hits magazines and sitting down to the evening news; someone escaping the monotony of the suburbs with "your favourite tape and a UBD".
It's Harley's sense of detail that makes these songs and the characters that inhabit them stay in your head. Sometimes witty, sometimes nostalgic or sometimes enabling us to see ourselves in the songs. Kate And The Old XD is one of the highlights, and its portrait of a restless drifter's misadventures is funny and moving; but the song is also about all of us who have lived in the suburbs, feeling lost and bored and dreaming of a life that can't be predicted by a trip to the local shopping mall.
There's a fine tradition of jangly Australian story-telling pop, and Harley Young's ability to craft memorable tales of everyday life makes Little Songs For Big People a rewarding repeat listen and a worthwhile contribution to the genre.
- Andy Paine.