A sequel to his 2003 retrospective of the same name,
Colin Hay's second
Man @ Work volume contains a similar array of career-spanning songs reinterpreted to suit his present tastes. At this point in his timeline,
Hay's world-conquering days as the chief singer/songwriter for Australian new wave heroes
Men at Work are many decades past -- his prolific solo career, begun in the late '80s, has endured for far longer and yielded plenty of fruit. Perhaps that's why there is only one selection from his former band here, the reggae-tinged "Blue for You," which gets a treatment that is remarkably similar to its 1983 original. More engaging are his adaptations of solo highlights like "Into My Life" from his excellent 1990 album
Wayfaring Sons or the poignant "Oh California" from 2009's
American Sunshine. While the former doesn't stray all that far from the strident folk-rock of its original iteration, "Oh California" and tracks like the haunted "Here in My Hometown" take a more stripped-down acoustic approach that suits
Hay's still-commanding voice. There's also a new song, "We the People," another reggae-indebted cut whose sharp, politically driven lyrics are shared with rapper
Derrick "Solpowa" Rice. Often, there's a sense that revisiting older material feels like a stopgap in an artist's catalog, but
Hay's warm reinterpretations often feel more like one of his intimate live shows and bear the poignancy only age and experience can deliver. ~ Timothy Monger
