- You know those albums you have in your collection that you absolutely adore? When people say to you ‘What three albums would you take with you to a desert island?’ or some such nonsense, this album is always somewhere in the list, but when they ask you to explain what genre it is, or what makes it so damn special, you’re reduced to rambling vaguely like “Oh, well, you know. . . it’s sort of. . . rock, I guess but not really, there’s lots of influences in there. You know the Church? It’s like that, a bit, in some ways . . . actually no, it’s more something than that. It’s like a bluesy dance rock. . . thing. . . Just listen to it okay!?”

Nothing to Be Frightened Of is just such an album, wilfully defying casual categorisation. Stephen Cummings, of Melbourne’s short-lived but seminal late-seventies New Wave rock outfit The Sports, has released more than twenty solo records, starting in 1984, all with a distinctly different musical vision, always evolving, never stagnating.

NTBFO is a frank confrontation of the darker sides of life, of loss and death and yet it refuses to be hurried. There’s none of that panicked, heckling undertone, preaching of the short time allotted to us. It travels at its own pace, sometimes bitter, sometimes wry, hopelessly hopeful.

Cummings has come a long way from his solo dance pop efforts of the early eighties, but those pop sensibilities are still very evident. The instrumentation is classic rock, consisting solely of Shane O’Mara’s guitar, a splash of organ and drums both live and programmed. Actually, I much prefer the tracks with live drums rather than drum machines. Their mechanical sound just seems to drain away some of the intimacy and rawness that is the very heart of the album. I despise the descriptive terms ‘warm’ and clean’ when it comes to production, purely because they’re used to describe just about anything anybody wants, but they feel appropriate here.

The composition is simplistic with fantastic basic beats and lots of space around each element. There’s no intense layering or furious polishing or crazy extrapolation of musical themes. It’s lucid and crisp – almost sparse in a way. No wailing guitar solos either, except on First In Line – O’Mara wanders where he will. Cummings voice is really the main element of this album, though. It’s evocative and vital and urgent – he has the kind of voice that beguiles you, picks you up and carries you through, setting you down gently before you’ve even realised it’s over. If I had to make a comparison for you, I would suggest maybe a Frank Black/David Byrne mashup. Hmmm.

I know I’ve just used a boatload of adjectives to describe Nothing To Be Frightened Of, but I’m hesitant to make sweeping statements such as fans of x will enjoy this album – it’s an exploration, a very personal one at that and a true original. Stephen Cummings is a lifelong artist, going from strength to strength, never allowing himself to be limited by genre or expectation, and this album is an absolute. . . . Look, just listen to it, okay?!?

- Hayley Elliott-Maclure.