Fanny Lumsden continues to go from strength to strength, building her fiercely independent brand of autobiographical country and folk music. Playing country hall shows, living and traveling in a caravan and covering all corners of Australia, she’s living as boldly as she’s working hard and this album, her second full-length, finds her documenting those adventures and experiences in song.

Still polished and easy on the ear, there are some subtle changes on this record. You can hear the dust of the red dirt road seeping into the grit of the guitars, organic and communal handclaps as well as raw and lively harmonica. She also shows she can shift gears into soulful 60s territory as she does on the infectious ‘Pretty Little Fools’. Elsewhere she pens a paean to the open road (‘Roll On’) and  in ‘Big Ol’ Dry’ she details the challenges and victories experienced in country life.

What Lumsden does cleverly is paint pop colours and shapes over a roots music framework, but while doing so she also addresses some weighty and important issues such as the emotionality of men in ‘Real Men Don’t Cry (War On Pride)’)and the tragedy of suicide in the affecting and vocally impressive album closer ‘Here To Hear’. A real class act indeed.

Chris Familton