CD REVIEW
3 stars
THE potency of Golden’s piano chords is a feature of his Sydney trio’s debut album. In 10 originals, well backed by Brendan Clark on bass and Rod Turner on drums, Golden is often forceful, building energy through repetition and the strength of his percussive style.
This youthful vigour is fine — in a stop-start approach the trio brings short ideas without being short of ideas. But Golden can be heavy-handed, with a tad too much emphasis and less of the expression he shows in the track P&S. In Waiting he uses chords like a mantra, then assertively, then with ringing sonority.
Fragments of groove in Woodblock Prince and P&S are too brief. Pace variations add interest in Twice Removed and Harold Arlen’s If I Only Had a Brain. But in P&S there is relief from power playing, as well as great clarity.
Download: Twice Removed, P&S
CD launch: Jan 19, 9pm, Bennetts Lane, Melbourne
ROGER MITCHELL
This review also appeared in the Play liftout of the Sunday Herald Sun, Melbourne on January 16, 2011
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