There are people around these days who still believe that dedicating your rock & roll outlook to political protest songs is a career decision rather than a moral one. This is, of course, completely farcical: Neil Murray is preaching 99% to the converted, and the only people listening with open ears are, I'm certain, his peers and his pals. This political Oz rock thing is a bit like, say, the UK indie scene: a tiny clique but a clique which depends, in part, for its survival by continually asserting its vitality and relevance.

All of the above sounds like a complete damnation of Murray and his ilk but in fact it's not at all; it's an attempt to put Murray in context. Neil Murray is not going to change the world, but that doesn't mean he's not highly skilled at what he does do. "Sing Your Destiny" has a classic rock feel, that simple-repetitive-guitar-line feel, that Australian music has always done so well. "Holy Road" is a cautious approximation of the 1989 Manchester sound wedded to an INXS approach, yet the overall effect is not the disaster that description suggests. "Salty Ground", which follows it, is an appealing reggae blues ballad in which Murray even gets away with plaintively addressing a "big tree". The best bits of Neil, however, come when he plays around with sparse and disorienting rhythms - for instance in "Broken Song" - or delivers a full-on rock attack, like the aforementioned "Destiny" or "Is Nothing Gonna Change". In all, an undoubtedly heartfelt rag-bag of influences which will be embraced by all true believers.