Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * * *
The moment you receive your first electric shock, the stimulating feel of the mixed emotions of pain, the thrill that tingles down your arm and onwards to the riveted digits at the end and bouncing back up through the nervous system to the brain is on a par from the opening note and beating heart of Jimmy Barnes latest studio album Hindsight.
The retrospective glance at what caused the pulsating feel, the crackle of the air and the intimate knowledge that in the wire lives an uncontrollable beast ready to rage and perform what people of old considered to be within the realms of the five types of magic is much the same emotion that cascades and crashes into the eardrum with the same intensity as the polar icecaps being ripped apart at the seams and a 300 tonne freezing iceberg ravaging the northern waters. Electricity it seems is the life blood but it cannot be sustained without the very human need of emotional security and deference in which musicians and artist live; this is no different for the magic that resides within Jimmy Barnes’ Hindsight.
Beasts come in various guises, some display the very best of humanity and the 14 tracks that are offered like contributions to the Gods and musical observations to those that live beneath the clouded judgement of Zeus or Jupiter are of the highest, most rocking beasts imaginable. The beast may bark, it might just snarl and growl like Cerebrus, each song supplying the unusual attraction of being able to face in many different directions but it is a beast in which the listener can but love, whether in the moment of first delivery or in the future, it will however stick in the memory for a long time to come, Hindsight perhaps being the most perfect of examples.
For 30 years Jimmy Barnes has thrilled and cajoled, taken apart and placed back together with the delicate nature of a master potter, a musician of the highest quality and the songs he places before his fans are those that mean the most to him and what better way to make the best sound supreme than by playing out of your skin, letting the magic of electricity do its work and asking a few friends to pop by and help you rerecord them. With contributions from the likes of Joe Bonamassa, Steven Van Zandt, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, tracks such as the fierce opener Lay Down Your Guns, the brilliance of Stone Cold with Tina Arena and Joe Bonamassa, Love and Hate and I’d Rather Be Blind, all make Hindsight the kind of album that in the dim and distant past would have stores opening through the night to sell in their abundance.
The magic in electricity is not a secret but the wealth of it that resides within Jimmy Barnes is enough to have people listening for every hidden gesture and lick of the guitar, in that magic really does exist.
Hindsight is released in the U.K. by Provogue Records on October 27th.
Ian D. Hall