Nick Batterham - Lucky Cat (2014) Lossless

Releasing a power-pop record in 2014 is a sure path to underdog status, but Melbourne’s Nick Batterham wears both the power-pop and underdog tag well. He’s much more drawn to classic songwriting than to up-to-the-minute innovation, and in fact some of the songs on this self-produced third album sprung from unreleased demos by his well-liked ’90s band The Earthmen. He’s even backed in part by former Earthmen and Cordrazine bandmates. And yet Batterham doesn’t stick exactly to the power-pop playbook: he lets in a lot of other influences while often dosing his snappy tunes with a wry bitterness.
Greeting the latter-day Teenage Fanclub cues of opener ‘Make It Through This Long’ – from daydreaming vocals to fuzz-shagged solo – prepares us for a straightforward meal of tried-and-true comfort food. But without a producer to veto his stray impulses, Batterham adds a disco-ish hook and bass pulse to ‘Lights Go Out’, a reeling loop and zeitgeist-skewering lyrics (“To craft is to slowly die”) to ‘Lonely Boys of Brunswick’ and cheap electronics to the twinkling, down-and-out title track (“Eight of your lives are through”). Each is quietly subversive without losing its sighed cosiness and well-buffed melodic gleam.

Of course, he’s right in his wheelhouse with the driving, frosted power-pop of ‘Can’t You See It’s Over’, the handclaps-and-horns mod flashback of ‘Fighter’, the very Byrds-y ‘Liar’ and the twanging ‘What are You Waiting For’. If he leans too heavily on the much-trodden relationship song, his knack for breathy vocals and prodding choruses usually wins out. And he really taps the darkness in relationships on ‘Get Away With It This Time’, which feels a lot more lived-in than most songs in that vein. There’s too much pain and betrayal for the lyrics to sound like mere boy-loses-girl platitudes. “Why do you make things so hard?” he asks amid other pointed questions on the drowsy, wounded ‘Bridesmaid Blues’.
Following closely after last year’s Closing Time at Yah Yah’s, Lucky Cat isn’t going to make Batterham some buzz-magnet overnight success. But between the understated victories of this fine album and an upcoming Earthmen retrospective, he’ll be easier to seek out than he has been in years – and more worth it than ever.