Xavier Rudd - Dark Shades Of Blue (2008)

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The fifth studio album from Xavier Rudd has been, and will continue to be referred to as a "dark" album.

However, this is a rather obvious and lazy judgment to make.

While Rudd definitely makes the step away from lofty acoustic riffs and soothing, whispered vocals which encompass the entire album as he may have done with last year's "White Moth", there is no sense of this being a firm, dismissive movement.

Xavier Rudd has simply stepped in one direction, as though he were wandering in a meadow - he can take a step backward or forward and it makes him no lesser an artist.

While the album feels very dark, there is hardly any shadow with the electrified slide guitars, the distorted vocals and the somewhat haunting snatches of indigenous chanting, the album is a visceral piece of a beautiful night.

The opening track is a pulsating, organic instrumental with a hard rocking effect seeding an anticipation of harsh words to follow. They don't.

Xavier's soft voice calmly emanates from the title track with the same vulnerability and awe as his previous recordings, but this time it is accentuated by the knife-life technique he employs on his instruments.

The next track, Secrets, has a lightening funk twist of Australian roots but drags in throughout it's six and a half minute length far too noticeably - ultimately the pace is disrupted for no reason.

He revisits the technique two tracks later with Edge of The Moon which is more effecting if not slightly disappointing when the howling guitar and dancing beats can't satisfy the desire for juxtaposition with the distant, distorted vocals.

However, if we stand back, we see a rhythm forming - an oceanic, throbbing flow.

The apex of this album is fittingly exemplary of what he has achieved here. This World As We Know It feels like you are swaying under the stars and greeting the world which he can see with the two eyes he has been given.

A simple statement, but life is just that simple with this song.

He is not joyful because he is hiding in an obvious, blaring beauty, he has made the dark beautiful because he exhibits the strength to see, to feel and to embrace.

The album is not operatic, and this is what makes it memorable, it feels alive as a whole album, and as a perfect night. The songs do not explode in a crescendo only to then fade away. This World As We Know It could go on whilst we have moved onto the next track; nothing is ever finished.

Shiver is like a lullaby and it continues on with the tenth track, Hope You'll Stay which creates the sense of the last precious moments with a lover in the pre-dawn hours, but the final track Home gives you the strength to walk away, into the new day as birds whistle and trees crackle and the album closes on Xavier Rudd’s melodic exhale. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5

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