A Fool Who'll

The first sound you hear on A Fool Who'll, the third album by transcendent Australian songwriter Laura Jean, is something never before heard on a Laura Jean record -- it's the sound of an electric guitar. A Fool Who'll was initially intended to be an acoustic album, much like its acclaimed antecedents Our Swan Song and Eden Land. Laura moved to a cottage in Victoria's Central Highlands in 2009 to write, but despite composing on her trusty steel string, the songs just didn't sound right. It was then that Laura remembered her pastel yellow guitar. "When I'd pictured myself playing an electric, I'd always imagined I'd go for a Strat or a Telecaster," she says now. "But somehow, the crunch, the almost brattinesss of the SG, seemed to impart something to the songs that they needed. And the ridiculous color was kind of perfect as well." You could say Laura Jean went to the country and came back with a rock record. Opener "So Happy" surprises with its thunderous drums and dueling saxophone solos, but there's no rock posturing here. A Fool Who'll is a dark album, claustrophobic, and even menacing at times, but suffused with a fierce beauty that is pure Laura Jean.