Delaney Davidson is a master of magnificent miserablism.
It would be easy to take the stage persona and unfathomably moody countenance of Christchurch artist Delaney Davidson as mere shtick if it wasn’t pulled off so completely and with such aplomb. On his fourth solo album of magnificent miserablism, fittingly titled Bad Luck Man, Davidson plumbs the depths further, over 14 songs with just enough variety, in delivery and style, to make a case for this being his most solid statement yet.
It may not have a transcendental standout like Little Heart, the Apra Silver Scroll-nominated scorcher from last year’s excellent Self Decapitation album, but this one is even more rounded and consistent, showing Davidson has plenty of talent to grow on. His development in terms of performance and treatment of his simple yet never facile song craft is glaringly evident on I Told a Secret, which originally appeared on his debut, Rough Diamond, released on one of New Zealand’s most enduring and underrated labels, Stink Magnetic.
The original version from 2007 is an effective, but unpolished, bluesy murder ballad with unaccompanied guitar and plenty of calloused charm. This time around, it’s a fleshed out, woozy lurch, with sympathetic steel guitar, tinkling ivories and slinky drums raising the drama, and bearing favourable comparisons to Nick Cave or Tom Waits at their vaudevillian best.
Davidson is equally adept at translating the songs of others, converting Abner Jay’s sharecropper lament, I’m So Depressed, into the album’s breeziest and almost poppy moment and initiating a loose banjo-led hoedown on the traditional standard I Saw the Light from Heaven. His cover of Voodoo Rhythm label boss Reverend Beatman’s I Got the Devil Inside is an interesting experiment, amping up the swampy vibes with nothing more than rolling tom-toms, rattling percussion and anguished vocals – but among so many accomplished and well-developed songs, it ultimately feels somewhat slight.
Unsurprisingly for the artist who bases himself in Lyttelton for half the year when not pursuing his touring hobo bent in Europe and the United States, the shadow of Christchurch’s wretchedly seismic year hangs heavily over the album. When he addresses that directly in How Lucky You Are and It’s So Good (both songs that also appear on the excellent self-titled album), it illuminates just how much potential he has as a songwriter and performer, and what a fine craftsman he has already developed into.
BAD LUCK MAN, Delaney Davidson (Voodoo Rhythm/Southbound).