You’d be forgiven for making the mistake on initial listen to Broke & Banned – is this Bruce Springsteen, circa Greetings from Asbury Park, that we have here, or is it Melbourne singer-songwriter Sime Nugent? The comparison is easy, and unavoidable thanks to Nugent’s songwriting skills, intonation, and singing voice.

What, you think that is a BAD thing? Hell, no. Broke & Banned is ten excellent songs that are simply presented, for the most part relying on the interplay of Nugent’s guitar finger-pickin’ and his rangy voice. When he sings “I been touched by the hand/The grit and the grime” on “Now You’re There”, it’s easy to imagine he’s singing of cold New Jersey and not cold Melbourne.

Broke & Banned finds he and Angie Hart doing their best Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris (or, for you young scallywags, Ryan Adams/Gillian Welch) impersonation on “Into the Trees”, and it’s nothing short of fabulous. Here is an album where time and care has been taken to make sure that the presentation is perfect, that the delivery is precise, and – perhaps most important of all – that the songs are all quality. But, given that is the tenth album in which he’s been involved, perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

With friends in the right places – guests on Broke & Banned include Pat Bourke from Dallas Crane, J. Walker of Machine Translations, Jet touring member Steve Hesketh, drummer Mike Noga from the Drones, and multi-instrumentalist multi-band man Pete Luscombe – there seems to be a perception that his tenth release will bring the accolades that he no doubt deserves. The simple acoustica of “Gentle As She Goes” and “Your Words Deny” are as delightful as Nick Drake at his most sublime, whereas “Trying to Get to You” and “Somewhere By Now” cross-pollinate that folk tradition with a harder bluesy swagger on the former, and a gentle one on the latter.

Perhaps what’s most striking about Broke & Banned is how complete it feels – there’s not a moment wasted or misspent throughout the course of its thirty-six minute length. Closing with the warmth of “Any Day”, this is an album that will more than likely not set the world on fire. But is it all class, both in delivery and impact? No doubt.