The thing that strikes you when you hear Rory’s voice for the first time is the sheer presence of it – it’s deep, rich and instantly commanding. The charisma in the vocals would often be enough to get an artist noticed, but Rory has much more than that as he’s an excellent songwriter and a performer who delivers his songs with conviction and confidence.
A native of Melbourne, his songs have an identifiable Australian metropolitan feel and many songs have their roots and stories centred in and around suburban Australia. He describes his style as urban folk, and that’s an accurate description as musically its acoustic guitar based and draws many influences from the country and blues fields while maintaining a distinctly Australian ‘big-city’ feel.
Ellis himself plays guitars, dobro, lap-steel, piano and mandolin, and this is supported by percussion, accordion, bass and didgeridoo on various tracks. The overall musical feel is understated and there’s plenty of breathing room here that gives the excellent, meaningful lyrics and his expressive voice chance to shine.
There are some excellent tracks here, and the highlights include the title track, a song of resolve and hope in adversity; ‘My Old Man’s Coat’ has superb lyrics and a real Australian rock feel; and ‘Remember’ is a beautiful biographical piece of a woman looking back at her life.
‘The Rushes’ is an strong piece of work, at first it’s dominated by Rory’s voice, but the more you listen the more the musical nuances reveal themselves and the depth in the lyrics is brought to the fore. An excellent collection.

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