27 September 2023

Stray Gods

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Reviewed by Ian Phillips.

By CousteauX, SilentX Records/Salamander Records 2021.

CousteauX (the X is silent) is Liam McKahey on vocals and Davey Ray Moor on songs, piano, and flugelhorn, and they are a combination made in heaven.

The greatest partnerships are those where the union of the two elements is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Think of Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Rogers and Hammerstein, Don and Phil Everly etc. they were all wonderful musicians individually but their greatest work occurred when they partnered together.

Liam McKahey and Davey Ray Moor are the same.

Last year I reviewed Liam’s work with his band The Bodies, Liam’s songs and the album produced were wonderful but something magical happens when he sings Davey’s songs.

It’s the mix of Davey’s deeply emotional music and lyrics filtered through Liam’s amazing voice, that’s where the magic lies.

A voice that can rumble deep into the bass registers and then soar to remarkable heights, it can whisper and growl and then slide into a languid baritone, and sometimes it does this all in the one song.

In short, Liam possesses one of the great voices of popular music and one that can wring every drop of emotion from Davey’s songs.

It’s a powerful instrument in its own right; a voice that’s as deeply resonant as Scott Walker’s and flexible as that of Bowie.

Two of the 12 tracks on the album are covers.

Miley Cyrus and flaming Lips’ Karen Don’t Be Sad develops great pathos in Davey and Liam’s hands that the original didn’t achieve, and few could do Leonard Cohen’s So Long Marianne better than Liam.

The remaining 10 songs are originals written by Davey, with the exception of the opening track, Cheap Perfume, which is a co-write by Moor, Josef, and McKahey.

This album, the second since they reformed under the added X motif, contains songs that can stand proudly beside their very best work.

When The Bloom Has Left The Rose, Electrical Storms In Berlin, Love The Sinner, Praying For Rain, This Thing Won’t Fly and the afore mentioned Karen Don’t Be Sad are classics, but every song is memorable.

The album is available on Bandcamp and there is a wonderful clip for When The Bloom Has Left The Rose on YouTube.

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