Review: Lots to Choose From on Brett Every's Terrific New Album “Menu”

Sometimes life is fine restaurants, and sometimes it’s truck-stops and chili dogs. The menu is always changing, and all we can do is pick from the choices available to us and hope that things get better on the road ahead.

So says out Australian indie singer-songwriter Brett Every on his latest album Menu. And like his first two albums, Camping Out and Fairy Godmother’s Gone to Vegas, it’s another successful foray into Every’s unique blend of bluesy alt-rock and evocative lyrics.

The 32-year-old Every has always been a contemplative writer, but this may be his most wistful work to date – to the appreciation of anyone who likes their music backed by a little life experience (in addition to Every’s usual band of terrific supporting musicians and back-up singers, especially Estelle Noonan, who was born to sing with him).

“It’s crystal clear, we walk through this life, holding our glass hearts intact,” he writes and sings on “Fear of Heights, Pair of Wings.” “But the chandelier gives brighter light the more that it’s cracked.”

Truer words.

My favorite song on the album, meanwhile, is the mind-bending “Man Walks Into a Bar” in which a 40-year-old man meets his 20-year-old self in a bar, and they share a tender dance. Naturally, they know each other very well, even as they also completely misunderstand each other. (And the song’s twist at the end is also exactly as it should be.)

One of Every’s greatest strengths as a songwriter, singer, and arranger is his often perfect melding of music with lyric. In “If You Say Yes,” we learn all the things the singer won’t end up doing in his hotel room if his lover turns him down, and the song alternates perfectly between an almost breathless anticipation and an equally breathless fear of rejection. The song sounds as if the interaction literally just happened – which makes sense, since writing this song is one of the things the singer lists as doing in his hotel room, post-rejection.

In “Rough Road,” from which the album’s title is derived and is when we learn about the aforementioned truck-stop with chili dogs, we’re given more raw emotion when the singer plaintively tells his lover about their life together: “The menu isn’t always what you want, but I hope it’s enough.”

I especially love Every’s approach to “gay” content, which is always simultaneously matter-of-fact and wonderfully subtle. The infectious “Closure,” for example, is a sly warning about the dangers of the closet. If you don't deal with yourself, it says, you'll never get any closure.

More true words.

The album is mostly original songs by Every, with one cover (Concrete Blond’s “Joey”) which I actually think is better than the original.

Every continues to grow as both a songwriter and a performer. Menu is another winner.

Menu is available for purchase on iTunes and to learn more about Every, visit him at BrettEvery.com.