There's a curious feeling of lo-fi bedroom songwriting and glossy overproduction. It's reminding me of another band, not quite Babybird, but someone like Babybird. "Superstar in France" has horrible, cheesy keyboard strings running underneath like prawns under the floorboards. It doesn't really seem to go anywhere. Perhaps this was the time when the life stories eclipsed talent on the showbiz radars? "Keep All Your Windows Tight" builds up into an echoing cavernous whinge that goes nowhere, a bloated mosquito bumping against the window.
This is on during the football and I found nothing to pull me away from Clive Tyldesley. That should give you an idea of how I found it. "Ah Dictaphone" is a promising title, but I've tried three times to listen to it and drifted away each time. "I'm walking the dog and I'm scared in the usual way": I can relate to that. I would get regularly shitted up if I had to walk some pup about at night time. Maybe his is too small and quiet a voice to demand my attention.
"Like a beat up dog/Did you throw her away?" he asks on "Hey, Where's Your Girl?" in a tone that sounds midway between The JAMC and Shaun Ryder on "Bob's yer Uncle". That's a curious lyric. A passive aggressive address to someone that took control and had everyone bent down in front of them. That ol' passive aggressive drink-addled business. It's followed by "Powerful Man" which jangles in a slightly mournful and redemptive way. I quite like it. But I don't have time to start the album again...
Rating: Too Quiet out of Self-Pity
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