Ghost Ships (Acoustic)

Chronique

Volume 2 of James Reyne's acoustic reimaginings of his back catalog is even more satisfying than the first, And the Horse You Rode in On. The song choices are braver ("Beautiful People," "Way Out West") and the arrangements are tighter. Reyne even includes two of his all-time best compositions ("Fall of Rome," "Red Light Avenue"), and breathes new life into great songs that stretch back more than a decade. The song choices are also much more obscure on this volume, making it seem more like a new record than Horse was. And, like that record, the song choices range from Australian Crawl ("The Boys Light Up") through Reyne's lucrative solo career ("Motor's Too Fast"). Reyne even takes two tracks from Speedboats for Breakfast ("Bug," "The Rainbow's Dead End") and strips them down to their bare-bones melodies. The lyrics are still harsh, but they don't seem quite as scary anymore. It is not clear how many more acoustic reworking albums Reyne will do -- he certainly has the catalog to continue doing them for years. But this serves as a nice complement to his greatest-hits collection and -- with the combination of singles and rarities that make up this record -- it plays as a great Reyne album all on its own. Proof that an artist can rework their material and still come up with something fresh and new.

© Tomas Mureika /TiVo