For his latest album 'Fever Longing Still' which was recorded at Neil Finn’s studio Roundhead in New Zealand, he’s focused on the topic of Love. The fire of love. The pain of love. Love of family. Love entwined in memory and place. Love has always been at the heart of many of Paul Kelly’s greatest songs. To Her Door, How to Make Gravy, Careless, If I Could Start Today Again, Deeper Water, When I First Met Your Ma, Sweet Guy, Dumb Things, Firewood and Candles, The Oldest Story in the Book.

Taken from a line in Sonnet 147 by Shakespeare, whose writing has thrilled and inspired Kelly ever since schooldays, Fever Longing Still is his first set of new original material since 2018’s Nature, and it delivers 12 additions to that superb catalog of love songs spanning more than 40 years. “Hello Melancholy, Hello Joy,” as one of the new songs says. Recorded at Roundhead, Neil Finn’s studio in New Zealand.

As any of the best-loved songs from Kelly’s pen, “All Those Smiling Faces” is an emotional and vivid exploration of recollection, like peering inside the memories in a photo album. “Down the years the family face / Keeps jumping around from place to place / A look, a shape, a nose, an eye / That everlasting thing that’s never gonna die.” Taking inspiration from three of Kelly’s favorite poets, Dana Gioia in Finding a Box of Family Letters, Wislawa Szymborska’s Letters of the Dead and Thomas Hardy’s Heredity.

First appearing as a banjo-led version on 1992’s bluegrass album Smoke, “Taught By Experts” also surfaced as an acoustic guitar song on the Live, May 1992 album and took on yet another form on the soundtrack to the TV series Fireflies. “I have been circling that song for years,” Kelly says. “We thought we should try it with a chiming electric guitar part, and when we did that, we knew that was it.” That guitar part nods back to “Leaps and Bounds,” a love song to Melbourne, from the classic 1986 album Gossip.

Among the newly-penned tracks, “Harpoon to the Heart,” is the kind of song which might have been written any time in the past 100 years. “Dan had an idea for a guitar part where he played his line then put a harmony line on top of it the way Chet Atkins or Les Paul and Mary Ford would have done,” Kelly says. “It has a quirky, playful spirit to it, which earned its place on the record. That one was written quickly and ‘Houndstooth Dress’ came out in one go. For others we went right around the block,” Kelly says.

“There has been a long gap since the last album of new songs,” Kelly says, “and I realize 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.” Like Gossip, Fever Longing Still is an album driven by a band in peak form.

“Looking back on what we’ve done with these songs, it’s really a band record,” Kelly says. “That made me reflect on the longevity of the band, this squad. Peter Luscombe (drums) has been with me for more than 30 years, Bill McDonald (bass) and Dan Kelly (guitar) for 20. Even the newbies Cameron Bruce (keys) and Ash Naylor (guitar) have been with me since 2007. “Our philosophy is eclectic; we want to make each song different from the last. I just love that when I bring a new song to them, it can take on a completely new life.”

You know that time is now when you hear an album as strong as Fever Longing Still.