Lady Of The Sunshine - Smoking Gun

Lady Of The Sunshine isn't, in fact, a lady at all. This is Angus minus Julia Stone. Yes, temporarily sans his sister, the Australian singer/songwriter has spread his creative wings and put to use any scraps of spare time during his tours by putting together his first solo album.

Things start in very familiar territory. The opening two tracks are sweet and gentle and could easily have slotted onto the Angus & Julia Stone album, so it is all the more surprising when White Rose Parade kicks in with its Zeppelin blues and yelled (yes, yelled) chorus. It is like nothing we have heard from Stone before. With this, the laid-back, sensitive Aussie who can make a girl swoon from a hundred yards, shows that beneath his affable exterior, he has a slightly darker side. It's a pleasing dichotomy.

After a couple tracks more in keeping with the & Julia side to his music (in which the strings of Big Jet Plane are especially lovely), the album's title track elbows its way in, all heavy and Black Keys-esque with distorted vocals and even, if I heard it right, a rogue f-bomb. "Wake up, you've got the blues," Stone appropriately sings on Kings Black Magic before taking things back down and ending the long-player with the wonderful, dreamy, Lady Sunshine.

Regardless of whether he is opening up his lungs or barely whispering, the fact remains that Stone's voice is just beautiful. Smoking Gun is loyal enough to his well-established sound to please existing fans and also enough of a departure to prove Angus Stone to be an interesting and diverse artist. A success indeed.