After twenty years and absolutely brilliant “Untune The Sky” mini-lp and “Instinct” album from early to mid- Nineties, Richard Davies, another among the many Australian-born music mavericks, brings us back The Moles and “Tonight’s Music”.
Now, its not that Davis has been away - he did attain quite high critical (and cult) status with Eric Matthews and their Cardinal project, had another well received project, Cosmos with Guided By Voices mastermind Robert Pollard, and a series of also critically acclaimed solo albums.
This new Moles album, like those early ones, bears that peculiar, ‘Richard Davies melody stamp’, the one you feel that the song may fall appart any moment, but not only does it not, it produces something new and great. Through its 24 titles (talking about value for the money!), Davies shows why they called him a true heir to the baroque pop throne, his sense of melody is impeccable. But Davies adds something he learned along, from Pollard, for example, because instead of strings, usually associated with the baroque pop sound, the guitars are prominent, but serve the songs, there are not there just to beef up the sound.
He obviously missed the Moles moniker, because the stuff on this album definitely belongs among his best. It hardly possible to pull out a title and say, ok, this is the best one, highlights just keep on coming. If this album would be your first contact with Richard Davis’ music, it might be as well, because it fully represents what he has done so far and where he’s heading on from here. What it definitely does is make you search your collection for those early albums, the Cardinal stuff, solo albums…
