Paul Kelly is one of those rare tunesmiths who understand the difference between writing a song and merely grafting words to music. There are, for example, only half a dozen lines laid over the mournful harmonica and funereal reggae beat of "Last Train to Heaven," the leadoff number on Gossip, the Australian singer's U.S. debut. Yet the stark, simple force of Kelly's fatalistic hymn ("This is the very last train/This is the train I'm on"), combined with its grim-reaper groove and lyric nod to the Impressions' "People Get Ready," evokes twinges of deathbed regret and stoic religious calm with an immediacy out of all proportion to its skeletal ingredients.

Gossip – pruned down from its original double-LP format in Australia to a generous fifteen-song platter – is packed with Kelly's novel wordplay and sleight of tune. There are more than a few Dylanisms in Kelly's writing; "Don't Harm the Messenger" is a respectful bow to John Wesley Harding. You'll also detect traces of Lou Reed's dry wit, as in the morbidly funny tableau from "Incident on South Dowling" ("My head was like glue/Loaded and sinking/To the vegetable zone/She just kept on sinking/Now she's mineral and bone").

But the tight, punchy musicality of Kelly's songs and his gift for incisive lyric irony is actually closer to the wit and wham of pub-rock classicists like Graham Parker, Nick Lowe and Stiff-era Elvis Costello. Gossip is at its best when Kelly gets clever: "Darling It Hurts," a black-humored beer-barn rock-out whose title plays off Darlinghurst, a street in a Sydney red-light district, finds Kelly aching over a lover up to her neck in drugs and prostitution. In "Before Too Long," Kelly subtly veers from the carnal thrill of sexual hunger to the emotional treachery that's part of sating one's appetite – "The words will all be spoken/I know all the action by heart" – over a deceptively sweet melody and guitarist Steve Connelly's robust bedspring twang.

Happy endings are few and far between on Gossip. The best Kelly's characters can usually hope for is the temporary warmth of someone's arms ("Randwick Bells") or the bittersweet tingle of old memories ("Leaps and Bounds"). Still, even his most bitter pills, like the breakneck heroin lament "White Train," go down easy, thanks to the snap, crackle and pow of his Messengers, whose earthy kick and well-oiled shifts between country, ballad and power blues recall both the Band's denim-and-dust sound and the genrehopping confidence of Costello's Attractions. And while he deserves better than to be merely pegged as an antipodean Elvis, Paul Kelly's aim is definitely true. Get an earful of Gossip and spread the word. (RS 513)

DAVID FRICKE