The story goes that a critic once said to Joseph Heller: “you haven’t written any books like Catch 22 lately” to which the author replied: “yeah well neither has anybody else”.

And so to Don Walker. He hasn’t written a song like “Standing on the Outside” lately but neither has anyone else. And he has written a hell of a lot of songs which while they’re playing, do not leave you wishing for anything else. Is there anything else we can ask of a songwriter? It is certainly a benchmark not easily attained if casual radio tuning is anything to go by.

This year Don released his solo album, Hully Gully, which is the third under his own name and depending on how you count it, his 8th without Cold Chisel. It really is bloody good: worth buying, worth playing and playing again and to my own mind a further reminder of why one bought a great big ugly looking but lovely sounding stereo with a fair bit of horsepower and fidelity.

The title track refers to a dance of sorts, the basic shifting of weight from left foot to right and back again which passes for dancing among Australian men not sufficiently inebriated to express themselves in more than one plane.  It is a song with grunt. If you play it in your car the bass notes will exceed the capacity of your speakers and begin to dislodge the rivets and screws which hold your vehicle together. If you play it at home, in a block of flats for example, it will bring the neighbours up in fear of the ceiling collapsing. There is not much music like this anywhere. The song conjures up a serious party, somewhere out of town, with the best local band anyone has ever heard.

The local band in this instance are The Suave Fucks, Glen Hannah (guitar), Roy Payne, (guitar), Garrett Costigan (yet another guitar, a lap steel one), Michael Vidale (bass) and Hamish Stewart (drums). The production brief was given to Joe Henry due to his work with Allen Toussaint’s exceptional New Orleans projects “The Bright Mississippi” and, with Elvis Costello, “The River in Reverse”. I concede that I don’t really know what a producer does but being midwife to records of the standard of these two is certainly a glowing reference.

The album is replete with great yarns. “Young Girls” a song about and for a road trip, up the coast naturally. “Fishing” about what happens when you decide you are now far enough up the coast.  “On the Beach” and “The Perfect Crime” also seem to take place on the Pacific highway somewhere. Images of uncrowded beaches and approaching weather are evoked by these songs.  Songs like “Pool” and “The Long Way Home” showcase the understated intelligent playing of this band.

The song “Everybody” was perhaps the pick of the excellent Cold Chisel album No Plans. Having listened to both recordings dozens of times the preferred version might well be whichever one you are listening to at the time. The lyric is the same in both of course and it is a cracker.

No question about it: these are songs which warrant your attention.  At first listen these songs seem to be based on formats or templates which seem familiar but these song are fresh, not at all tired, kept so by lovely playing, novel lyrics and tones and tunes which are not quite what you anticipated.

Get it and then take the time to track back through Don Walker’s catalogue over the last few decades: as Catfish, as himself, in Tex Don and Charlie. The focus is on quality not quantity. There is nothing to dislike and a lot to love.