When artists with the pedigree of Karl Smith alight from their flagship vessel, there’s the expectation for new work to unearth hidden strengths, and for those strengths to be executed as assuredly as ever. After all, this is a practised craftsman shedding an identity and starting afresh with over a decade of trade secrets, which as frontman for Perth-born outfit Sodastream he should have in spades.

And so it is, that on one of this debut’s best moments, Smith offers a facet of his psyche that we’ve rarely – if ever – seen before. “Killing is now my everyday,” he sings during ‘Private Joseph Skelling’, a pint frothing murder(s) ballad written from 17-year-old Skelling’s point of view. “I took off a man’s arm today, while his sister was in the kitchen. I gave him water to stay awake just to hear him screaming.”

It gets considerably darker as it proceeds, but ultimately ‘Joseph Skelling’ is the great success of The Lives of Lee Memorial. It effortlessly elucidates the trajectory of everyman to state-funded killing machine, all from a voice you’d never expect to hear it from. Smith wields his mixed pedigree band better here than anywhere else - an ensemble consisting of members of Ninetynine, The Nation Blue and Paradise Motel – but what makes the song so breathtaking is the way it expands that familiar voice into regions you never thought it could navigate.

But like most radical departures, ‘Joseph Skelling’ is among a few isolated and well-insulated anomalies here. ‘All These Things’ sees Smith role-playing again, caterwauling, protecting his consumer goods like a cashed-up Golem, pushing his empty palms outwards at the needy. The band is sensitive to these characters, with each constituent recklessly – but effectively – mirroring the grounded teeth obsession that such protectionism suggests. Lee Memorial bares serrated teeth where necessary, but overall, restraint is clearly something that Smith believes in as a virtue.

Less noteworthy, but no less adept, are the moments where Smith is most familiar, and these moments dominate this debut. Tracks such as ‘Shoulders and Floors’ are what we expect of him and he delivers them as achingly and sympathetically as always. The way this sentimentality merges with his more world weary experiments is crucial though: it provides welcome contrast to the departure we all expected Smith to make.

by Shaun Prescott