Tom Curtain has already been a guest of the pages of Planetcountry as far back as 2004 on the occasion of the release of his debut album “Smack Bang”. Now our cowboy from ”Down Under” returns with his new release, “Heatwave”, produced as always by Garth Porter, (former producer for Lee Kernaghan and Gina Jeffreys), and entrusted to the care of the best Australian session players. Although the sound is a bit more international and less “outback” to the previous “Smack Bang”, “Heatwave” is decisively a country Lp, singing about Wild Horses, Wearing Out Leather and above all Born Out Here. Already the title track says it all: “Last summer I wrote this song with my older brother James and the help of a few beers. We wanted to capture the essence of the Australian heatwave – everything stinking hot, with that unique and silence and defining stillness”.
The scorching Australian bush as the background of a hard life, intense and far from the bright lights of the city, but (or perhaps only) for those who were born there, beautiful and something which you couldn’t give up for anything in the world. Very Australian also is “Ringer In The Sky” (“a picture of what happens on a typical day mustering with helicopters”) and Go Goanna Go (based on a true story) whilst the more sentimental side of Tom Curtain is manifested by the romantic “Skye High” (” I met this beautiful girl in the Territory a few years ago and we seemed to get on really well. I never thought it would be possible, meeting someone on the same crazy wavelength as myself but it happened. Things progressed and I ended up singing this song to her at our wedding”) and “Days Roll By”. 11 songs that take us into a very distant world, and makes us struggle to capture the deeper essence, but, seeing that good music speaks a language without boundaries, even we, on this side of the planet, are able to appreciate “Heatwave”(Gianluca Sitta)
