Graveyard TrainTakes One To Know One
Black Hat Rackets / Cargo / MGM

- It’s been all quiet on the western front for Melbourne lads Graveyard Train. The last couple of years have seen the Melbourne-based sextet touring extensively, their unique brand of horror country proving popular amongst a fairly disparate crowd; rockabilly car hoons, bonafide country fans, psych-heads, tattooed punks. Takes One To Know One is their first release since 2012’s Hollow, which found the band steering away from their typical lyrical fare of ghosts, werewolves and shadows in the dark, into more symbolic (but no less sinister) songwriting. One thing remains obvious; these gentlemen are accomplished writers and supernatural storytellers, with some serious musical chops.

They’ve travelled far with this latest effort, evincing tales of more human horrors – lost love, death, regret and loneliness. Several songs have a definite military air about them, a soldier bidding goodbye to his mum or his girl, off to meet his fate. However, a pervading hope runs throughout the EP, giving a sense of coming full circle, when placed in chronological context with their spooky, blood-soaked discography. The songwriting and arrangement is undeniably polished and those sonorous, despairing harmonies that have become instantly recognisable as a GT trope, flesh it all out.

Several songs, such as The Chrysalid, demonstrate a departure from the typically acoustic instrumentation of previous works with a maudlin electric twang. Lead singer Nick Finch is also experimenting with his vocal range and vocal production. The EP exhibits more obvious post-production fairy dust (cuts, delays) than the arguably more ‘live’ sounding recording of The Drink, The Devil and The Dance. For me this does detract somewhat from that original malignant drunken sway, that sense of travelling through a dusty wasteland with a shabby rollicking carnival of the damned, turning whatever comes to hand into an instrument to be plucked, whacked and thumped.

And therein lies the rub; while many GT hallmarks remain on Takes One To Know One - sweet, baritone harmonies, desolate acoustic guitar - it’s that visceral element that’s missing. Where is the savage chatter of rattling chains, the hollow thud of boot heels on wooden floors, the primitive howling? The fantastical soundscapes have been pruned & refined into something that holds up beyond question in terms of musicianship and lyricism, but has almost lost that defining spark of gory cheer in the process.

- Hayley Elliott-Maclure.

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