Seven years and various side projects since his previous solo album, prolific Australian singer and songwriter Daniel Johns released the kaleidoscopic, genre-hopping FutureNever. There's something here for fans of every era, which lends the effort a faint air of career retrospective in the form of newly released songs. The Silverchair faithful will perk up with "FreakNever," a reimagining of that band's 1997 hit single, which provides this album's title with the lyrics "What if the future never came?" Diorama fans are rewarded with "Emergency Calls Only," a grand reunion with Van Dyke Parks that swells with a whimsical string section and Johns' soothing falsetto. Later, album closer "Those Thieving Birds, Pt. 3" completes that Young Modern song trilogy on a cinematic note with sweeping, widescreen melodrama. Fans of his 2015 alt-R&B solo effort Talk will delight at the sensual production blips and hazy atmospherics of "Mansions," the horny strutting of the bedroom funk "I Feel Electric" with Moxie Raia, and the hypnotic "Cocaine Killa" with Peking Duk. Johns goes so far as to drop gems for fans of side duos the Dissociatives (on the digital chamber pop journey "Someone Call an Ambulance") and DREAMS (the neon synth swirl of "D4NGRSBOY" with This Week in the Universe). Aside from these nostalgic and subtly satisfying moments, Johns further expands his stylistic scope with the buzzing guitar scuzz and bloody rasp of "Where Do We Go?"; the raucous, electric-riff blast of "Stand 'Em Up" with What So Not; and the breathtaking vocal showcase on the theatrical "When We Take Over." While FutureNever is entirely of-the-moment, one can't help but feel like Johns is dipping into various points in his past for some larger, yet-unknown purpose: is this a farewell of sorts or simply a gift to longtime listeners familiar with everything he's done since the '90s Silverchair heyday? Wherever the journey takes him, it's clear that Johns remains an artistic force who is still full of surprises after three decades in the industry. And even though FutureNever is not quite sonically (or sequentially) cohesive, it offers a fascinating, comprehensive view of Daniel Johns and his various artistic masks.
© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo