Stephen Cummings - Firecracker

I've been so preoccupied lately, busy you might say, big things
are changing in my life and I'm away for Easter from the
Tuesday night till the next Monday, so I will be most likely
offline the whole time. As Arnold Schwarzenegger said
"I will be back."
A quick post or two before I leave.
This is Stephen Cummings, Fantastic 2003
Album "Firecracker"

The prevailing mood of Firecracker is fun. Firstly, Cummings is
having fun with the form, toying with a dreamy, stranded-at-the-
drive-in ballad (One Kiss, which Chris Isaak should steal
immediately); swishing up skirts with a bit of New Orleans
stepping (Love's Coming);
getting a little hiccupy one minute (Baby What's Come Over You)
and sweaty but nice, a la Ricky Nelson, the next (Nothing's Too
Much). He even knocks over a couple of Elvis sneers you imagine
must have been sung in a pink sports jacket over black drape
slacks (Gone Baby Gone, for one). The band are clearly loving it,
too, while Shane O'Mara produced it with a very light hand that
offers plenty of room around the instruments.
But among the fun there is still craft. As ever, the maxim is true
that the simplest things can be the hardest to get right, and
right they are here: Cummings is too good a songwriter for it to
be otherwise. Even with the lyrics, which are deliberately pared
back from his normal style, Cummings still pulls out some
juicy lines. My favorite is in Love's Coming, which begins:

"Quietly as lovers creep at the middle moon,
Softly as players tremble in the tears of a tune,
love's coming,
talk to the thin air,
love's coming,
I knew not that it was there."

Bernard Zuel
February 15 2003
Sydney Morning Herald

Track listing

01. The Popular One
02. Go Right Ahead And Break My Heart
03. Nothing's Too Much
04. Love's Coming
05. Baby What's Come Over You
06. I Want You To Want Me
07. How Much Longer
08. One Kiss
09. Sweet Saturday
10. Gone Baby Gone
11. Music In The Air
12. Why Doesn't She Want Me
13. Flying Blind
14. The Keys To Her Heart

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