Paul Kelly Reveals New Album 'Fever Longing Still'

Paul Kelly is back with his first album of original material since 2018’s Nature. Today, he is announcing a new LP, Fever Longing Still, which is due for release on Friday, 1 November, via EMI Music Australia.

To accompany the album announcement, the Aussie icon has unveiled the music video for a song he’s been trying to perfect for 30 years. The first single from his forthcoming album, Taught By Experts, calls back to the guitar heard in one of Kelly’s most popular songs, Leaps & Bounds, from 1986’s Gossip.

“I have been circling that song for years,” the To Her Door singer explained in a press release about the single. “We thought we should try it with a chiming electric guitar part, and when we did that, we knew that was it.”

You can check out the music video below.

Fever Longing Still is an album about love, even if Kelly didn’t immediately realise its themes. “I never know what the themes are until I am in the middle of doing a record,” Kelly said. “I don’t set out with an album in mind.

“Over the past 20 years, I just get the band together and put down a batch of songs. I put them in what I call my odd-socks drawer on the computer, and as they accumulate, I see which ones work together.”

Adding that the new album does indeed resemble Gossip beyond its first single, Kelly continued, “There has been a long gap since the last album of new songs, and I realise now that this record is a bit like Gossip, an album with a long gestation where the songs are all quite different to each other in style.”

Kelly has described Fever Longing Still as a “band record,” one that’s “made [him] reflect on the longevity” of his band, which he calls his squad. For the new LP, Kelly has enlisted his longtime drummer Peter Luscombe – who’s been in the band for over 30 years – and bassist Bill McDonald and guitarist Dan Kelly, who have been with him for 20 years.

Plus, there’s the “newbies”—Cameron Bruce on keys and Ash Naylor on guitar—who have been playing with Kelly since 2007. “Our philosophy is eclectic; we want to make each song different from the last,” Kelly explained. “I just love the band, and when I take a new song to them, it can take on a completely new life.”

He concluded, “I think of that when I keep going back to older songs, too. I just try to finish things and get them right, and not be afraid to start again. You are going to have misfires, but that doesn’t mean the song isn’t good. It just needs the time to be right.”

The vinyl copies of Fever Longing Still will be pressed on the sustainable bio-vinyl compound. You can pre-order/pre-save the album here.

In November, Paul Kelly was inducted into the SA Music Hall of Fame.

A month after that milestone, Australian streaming service BINGE unveiled the first official preview for How To Make Gravy – the feature film based on Kelly’s titular 1996 classic – to commemorate the annual celebration known as Gravy Day (21 December). Production of the film began in October of last year, with Kelly confirming the project in May of last year.