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| Track list: 1. What It Means To Bleed 2. New England Rain 3. Graceless 4. Bless Your Heart 5. In This Town 6. They're Everywhere (interlude) 7. Lock & Key 8. World Stands Still Running time: 23 minutes Released: 2008 |
OK, so this is a completely random thing. I have no record of it, but I think someone pointed me at this on LastFM when it was all free, but it is free there no longer so... I have no idea why anyone would point me at this guy, his past work and band affiliations not being known to me or in a field that I ever followed. Still, I have them, so I must listen, that is how this works.
This is a home recording, raw not overproduced. Driving guitar and a gravelly hoarse voice that is breathy, reminding me of E from Eels. Keys join in, plinking away over the rhythm set up by the strumming. It all feels a little bit formulaic, pleasant enough but not arresting. I do like the raw nature of it but the composition and delivery fall a little flat. The second track feels like it goes on forever - a repeated pattern over a vocal that is barely more than a strained whisper. If there were a touch more variety in the instrumentation it would work pretty well, but alas it is just a little too empty for too long. By the time the variations arrive the song is too sullied to be fully redeemed.
McIntosh's vocal is pleasing - I am a bit of a sucker for a dark, broody delivery. Not screamed, not shouted, but contained anger, angst harnessed for effect. This presents me with a quandary, because I like the raw nature and the singing, but what I feel the songs need is... more production. Or at least more people involved. The slightly dull edge to everything works but there is not enough there for it to be effective, and I am not finding this predominantly one man and a guitar effort quite interesting enough.
Bless Your Heart has a bit more to it - keys and some other form of percussion - the overall sound goes in the right direction, keeping the rawness whilst growing in volume, but the song and performance unfortunately are less interesting. It also somehow runs into technical difficulties in WMP and is captured as another play of the opening track despite the fact I have not touched the playlist this time. Oh well. In This Town has a nice dirty, gritty air to its main guitar line, but suffers from a pretty dull arrangement. Overall this feels like a "nearly great" effort. There is something to like in every track here, but I am not finding anything to love. It does amuse me that the song tagged with (interlude) is longer than two of the other seven tracks though.
Did I say something to like about every track? That streak looks like it will broken by Lock & Key. I do not like the playing here, and the song is very dull for a minute and a half before it gets some tempo - the last minute does offer something more palatable but not enough to excuse an opening that was simply unpleasant. Generic as the hook sounds, World Stands Still is a much peppier end to the selection and this has some real charm to it before the abrupt end and fall of silence.
I am presented with a decision here. Each track did offer something of interest, but was it enough to keep? I think on balance probably not, and yet I am stayed by the fact that whilst I got all these tracks free, they are free no longer. Might I want to come back to this? I think on balance probably not for most of it - there is a little bit too much missing or out of place on each track to really say that I enjoyed this brief listen. It was pleasantly diverting but not gripping or compelling so I think I shall say "thanks, but no thanks" and trim.
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