Gary Steel“THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY” – A SHORT SERIES OF 2014 ALBUM REVIEWS THAT NEVER SAW THE LIGHT OF DAY, FOR SOME REASON.
THERE’S SOMETHING LIKABLE about Thomas Timothy Vernon-Kell’s snotty monotone raps, and the introverted nature of his dinky, amateurish overdubbed instrumentation, but Luck, his third album, is a fatal shot of under-achievement.
Typically, he will set up a nagging guitar line or a repetitive synth melody and set about sneering at the world in a sing-song voice that the artist himself clearly loves a lot, but which quickly grows wearing.
At his best, those ringing guitar repetitions together with his almost atonal singing voice, conjure up memories of just how good David Byrne’s nerdy vocals in early Talking Heads really were. At his worst, this English singer-songwriter endlessly mocks the world and his place in it, while sounding like he really thinks he’s above it all.
It starts out so promisingly, too, with a song packed with intentionally clichéd phrases, and then the rather catchy single (catchy like shingles), ‘Sherman (Animals In The Jungle)’. Sadly, it’s all downhill from there. GARY STEEL
Sound = 3/5
Music = 3/5
