It took until track seven for me to realise Mack Geiger wasn’t American. Then “Nothing Like Grandma” came on, he started talking about scones, cream and jam, and there it was in the way he said it. Queensland. I’d spent the first six songs thinking he was from somewhere a good deal closer to Nashville.
In my defence “His & Hers” is brilliant old-school honky-tonk, and the fiddle on “How Crazy Is That?” makes it sound like a song you’ve known for years. It’s for all the blokes who swear they’d never take her back. We all know we would, let’s be honest. Geiger comes out all guns blazing on “String By”, too, and you know full well he’s going to fall for it. Broken hearts and bad decisions. Country music has always done those better than anyone.
Geiger wrote eight of these himself, with Nashville writers in the mix elsewhere. Keith Stegall, whose credits include Alan Jackson and Zac Brown Band, shares production duties with Jared Adlam. The voice is the thing, though. It’s perfect for “Dying In This House”, and he knows exactly how to use it on “Just Called To Let You Know”. You can picture the bloke scrolling through his phone in the early hours, looking up his ex and telling himself he’s doing fine. We’ve all been there, mate. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself on “You Don’t Deserve Me”, too. And yet you know she does.
For all the heartbreak, there’s a warmth to “Walk a Straight Line” that feels entirely genuine, and “How It Ends” is a simple love song about wondering where it might all lead. “Mess of Blues” is what country used to sound like, and the guitar solo on “Pouring” is just about perfect.
“Jesus & Jones” closes it by making a virtue of something as simple as turning off your phone. Then, in amongst the things he likes and the things he can’t stand, Geiger gets to the subject of men being told to keep everything bottled up and what that can cost them. It’s a very modern concern in a song that sounds like it could have been made decades ago.
I saw James Johnston recently, and it does make you wonder if there’s a country renaissance going on down under. Johnston is more from the Luke Combs school. You get the feeling Geiger would rather be George Jones. With a debut this assured, I’d fancy his chances of taking that sound a fair bit higher up the country charts.
Rating: 8/10
