Shane Nicholson - Familiar Ghosts (2008)

Country singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson delivers an impressive solo effort in the shape of Familiar Ghosts. A collection of easy-listening ballads and love songs backed up by Shane’s captivating voice, finger-picking guitar grooves and the odd wail on the harmonica.
From fronting the Brisband, Pretty Violet Stain to a solo career and now to scoring an ARIA gong in the last month for the country roots album Rattlin’ Bones with his wife Kasey Chambers, it’s been a great ride for Shane Nicholson. Along the way, like most busy songwriters I guess, he’s penned and then packed up some songs that got lost in all that activity. One thing is very refreshing about this album – it’s not just a clone of his previous effort with his wife Kasey Chambers. Familiar Ghosts is a great release in it's own right and worthy of your attention.

This disc is about re-finding some of those songs and giving them another chance. That may suggest these one-time discards are lesser works, but he has done his selecting quite effectively – my only gripe is that it’s meant limiting this CD to 30 minutes. There’s no sense of just how old these 11 songs are but, not surprisingly, these fresh takes have a strong country lean to them, from the wheezy harmonica and measured banjo of Such A Shame to the subdued man-and-his-acoustic porch mood of Thank You And Goodnight. And, with Nicholson doing all the singing, playing and producing, it’s done painstakingly enough but the mood is kept lowkey, tending towards the unassuming side. Which in the end actually works in their favour.

Track List:

01 - Easy Now
02 - Summer Dress
03 - Where The Water Goes
04 - Long Time Coming
05 - Who's At Your Window
06 - You And Your Enemy
07 - Barcelona
08 - Such A Shame
09 - Short Fuse (Part 4)
10 - God & Elvis
11 - Thankyou & Goodnight

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