The wistful chamber pop of Mick Harvey is charming and, at times, very lovely. Yet it lacks the air of foreboding which sets great art apart from that which is merely agreeable.
His curse, of course, has been to fall in with Nick Cave. A Bad Seed of 20 years standing, Harvey has, through his career, cast himself as the quiet lieutenant to Cave’s raving captain. You can’t but wonder whether such devotion has stunted his development as a songwriter.
On One Man’s Treasure, he nurtures the good egg lurking within the Bad Seed, plying honeyed ballads, string-soaked folk and grandiose show-tunes that glance longingly at the golden era of crooners. Individually, much here is beguiling. Cumulatively, however, the results are frequently soporific.
The singer’s appetite for lavish production is an obvious impediment. His dizzyingly excessive arrangements are overwhelming and, occasionally, plain sickly.
Harvey also has a weakness for lazy melodies. This leads him to write hazy, fragmented quasi-songs, that cross the line between dreamy and dull and get lost on the way back.
Like the girlfriend you could never bring yourself to marry, One Man’s Treasure will stir a certain, watery fondness. Long before the end, though, you realise a love affair is out of the question.