Kevin Morby: This Is A Photograph | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- This Is A Photograph is the seventh album by brilliant and fecund singer-songwriter, Kevin Morby. The album is unabashedly nostalgic in nature. From the first line it's a rumination of the past as Morby sings, “This is a photograph, or window to the past / Of your father on the front lawn with no shirt on / Ready to take the world on”. With its second-person narration, the boisterous opener puts the listener directly in the middle of Morby’s world. Through this perspective, he takes a moribund look at life as he crows, “This is what I’ll miss about being alive / This is what I’ll miss after I die.”

Fans of Morby will be aware of his penchant for thematic albums, where lyrical and musical motifs are threaded through the tracks. This was most evident on 2019 release, Oh My God, where harps, choirs, pianos and spiritual themes were bountiful. On This Is A Photograph, Morby recycles the pictorial motif and uses string arrangements liberally, creating a grandiose feel that suffuses the record. This adds to the emotional weight of the songs, as does Morby's choice of a more forceful vocal approach. Usually delivering something more akin to Lou Reed’s monotone vocal suave, Morby lets loose on songs like the power ballad A Random Act of Kindness and Five Easy Pieces in a way that sounds honest, to the great benefit of the songs.

The album reaches its emotional height on ninth track, Five Easy Pieces, which shares a title with the 1970 Bob Rafelson film, starring Jack Nicholson. However, the parallels don’t end with the name, as Morby explained in a recent interview. He returned home himself with news that his father had suffered a heart attack, much like the film's protagonist. Musically, it builds slowly from a lone piano to an orchestral panoply as Morby bellows, “How do you make a bad time last? Get a picture, put it in a photograph!”. Ultimately, he ends on a sparse and sombre note, as he laments a “goodbye to good times”. From start to finish then, This Is A Photograph is a beautiful, melancholy, and glorious album from an artist who seems incapable of doing otherwise.

- Jon Cloumassis.