You Am I - Dress Me Slowly (Vinyl LP Translucent Orange)

Dress Me Slowly is You Am I's fifth studio album, released in April 2001 via BMG Australia, their first record after a three-year gap and the first to feature lead guitarist Davey Lane alongside Tim Rogers, Andy Kent and Russell Hopkinson. It debuted at #3 on the ARIA Albums Chart, breaking the run of #1 debuts the band had held since Hi Fi Way.

The bulk of the record was produced, recorded and mixed by Clif Norrell at Q Studios in Sydney, a working relationship Rogers credited as "an absolute joy," particularly after resisting pressure from American and English producers the label had lined up, who wanted the band to modernise their sound. Three tracks, "Beautiful Girl", "Watcha Doin' To Me" and "Kick A Hole In The Sky", came later, written after the album was nominally finished and recorded by Paul McKercher at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, then mixed by Skip Saylor in Los Angeles. Their inclusion gives the record its slightly split personality: most of the album sits close and direct, but those three tracks carry a wider, more polished room sound that opens the record up in its second half.

Sonically it's a step away from the blown-out energy of Hi Fi Way and Hourly Daily. The guitars are still the engine, Rogers and Lane locking in around a rhythm section that hits hard and plays loose, but there's more room here for restraint. Strings and horns thread through several tracks (arranged by Jackie Orszaczky, featuring Phil Slater and James Greening among others), and the writing leans further into balladry than anything the band had done before. "Damage" and "End O' The Line" are the obvious examples: slow-burning, melodically direct, Rogers working in the kind of sincerity he usually cuts with a smirk. The harder tracks, "Get Up", "Judge Roy", "Kick A Hole In The Sky", still crack open fast and loud, but even those feel considered. Three singles were drawn from the album: Damage (October 2000), Get Up (March 2001), and Kick A Hole In The Sky (July 2001).