Wally Kempton

It is a truism of popular music’s album-oriented era that great double albums are rare. In Australian indie rock – at least since the waning of the compact disc’s market dominance and vinyl’s revival among collectors – they have become close to non-existent.

So Ashley Naylor, leader of Melbourne stalwarts Even and a rock & roll classicist to the core, would have known full well the scale of what he was attempting to pull off with Reverse Light Years, his band’s eighth album. The band’s first, released back in 1995, was called Less Is More.

Well, as it turns out, more is more. Reverse Light Years sounds imposing: 17 songs in 80 minutes. Even have always been consistent, but this is by far their most impressive album, a cornucopia of musical delights where everything singer-guitarist Naylor, bass player Wally Kempton and drummer Matt Cotter try comes off.

I have been listening obsessively to Reverse Light Years almost non-stop for the last month, and every time, I’ve walked away humming a different tune. You can listen to it in one long trip, you can break it up into its four sides, or you can just dip in anywhere and hold up another jewel to the light.… Read more..