Troubadour Harvey Russell Releases New Single, New Album In 2024

With a new solo album coming in early 2024, Harvey Russell today reveals the third single from it, ‘Look Me In The Eye’, an honest and incisive appraisal of the world we’re living in.

As Russell embarked on the creative process for the forthcoming second album, his band The Widowmakers, a crack unit both in the studio and on stage, returned to add their mercurial touches to the first single ‘Honey Come Back to Me‘, which had its radio premiere on The Outpost on 2SER and online with Sunburnt Country Music.

Like a hip-shaking honky tonk classic, the chorus also revealed Wilco-like chord changes and a streak of melancholy, acting as a beautiful counterpoint to the lively verses.

Russell followed it up with ‘Last Dance’, the song’s backbone drum beat, stripped-back arrangement, gently distorted electric guitar and evocative fiddle playing brings to mind John Mellencamp circa The Lonesome Jubilee. In this case it’s emanating from the Australian heartland, underlined with a solo that could’ve come from a Paul Kelly song residing at the twangier end of Australian country rock.

Now Harvey reveals ‘Look Me In the Eye’, which premiered on Stuart Coupe‘s nationally syndicated Dirt Music radio show .

It’s a song with a lush warm and classic sound, beautifully balanced between familiar country and edgier alt-country sounds courtesy of producer Michael Carpenter (who also provides backing vocals). Aaron Langman’s playing is another standout feature of the song. His contrasting cosmic (and muscular) electric guitar and iconic country-sounding pedal steel gives the song a timeless quality. 

“Think I’ll go up to the cabin and leave you to be, and play some old Hank Williams and drink some whiskey”

From matters of the heart tackled on the previous singles, Russell now turns his mind to the divisive nature of modern societal discourse and the dangers of being blinded to life’s realities.

“We/society are at risk of losing our way,” explains Russell, “I wanted to question whether we’re up to the challenges and the demons we face.”

Harvey Russell released his debut album Liquid Damage, an album of classic country songs for the modern world in 2019, recalling everyone from George Jones to Jeff Tweedy. It heralded the arrival of a new solo artist on the local scene, though Harvey had already had years of experience under his belt, both as the frontman for the rock and alt-country group Harvey Swagger Band in the late 00s, and then as one half of the more acoustic-based country-folk duo Peasant Moon.

Russell’s well-received solo album and its singles ‘Please Don’t Pretend’, ‘Walking Downtown (Again)’ and ‘Gave You Flowers’ showed an artist with an innate ability to channel the classic tropes of country music throughout the 20th century, and combine them with contemporary metropolitan alt-country. After a decade developing and honing his songwriting, he’s dialled into the heart of country music with an authentic and finely-tuned ear for the song-craft of the genre, in all its forms.

In recent years, Harvey’s music has received attention both in Australia and overseas. He has achieved international recognition with performances at Canadian Music Week (2016) and touring throughout the US in 2017. Peasant Moon’s debut EP was a finalist in the Australian Roots Music Awards (EP of the Year, 2016) and the song ‘Over Again’ was a finalist at the 2018 Tamworth Country Music Festival’s Songwriters Awards.