Label: Pee Records

Verdict: Driven Fear return with a record that is more sincere, more passionate and more intense than ever before.  8/10.

All the way back in 2009 when I first starting writing for News Hit, the first review that I everwrote for the website was Damn The Empire’s ...With Trends Like These, a record produced by Adelaide-based indie Pee Records.  Three years later when I am writing what is most likely the final music review that will ever be uploaded onto Newshit, it is only fitting that it too is a Pee Records release.

In the modern music industry, the advent of pro-tools, auto-tune and numerous other digital aids means that it is possible to fake a lot of things.  It is possible to fake a strong singing voice.  It is possible to fake a perfectly pitched guitar solo.  The one thing that it is still impossible to fake, however, is passion.

Label: ANTI-Records

Verdict: Another masterful effort from Joe Henry.  9/10.

Joe Henry really is a musical dark horse.  Over the course of his career, he has chosen to ignore contemporary trends and industry etiquette and simply record whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

On Henry’s twelfth studio album, he continues this approach wholeheartedly.  While his last two records (2007’s Civilians and 2009’s Blood From Stars) were both musically complex and stylistically varied, Reverie places far more of a focus upon feel than pinpoint execution.