Very much an “everyman” artist, these are songs that it is easy to relate to; soap-opera dramas and domestic struggles put to music. “As Big As You” is a cutesy but powerful number about comparing yourself to your father, childhood memories and facing your own responsibilities, “Nicotine” a love song to the world’s most popular narcotic.
The music is unsophisticated but nuanced, simple yet stylised and the perfect partner for the lyrics and the voice, which is where you will find the heart and soul of this record – it is wonderful to be presented with material from a writer who puts his words front and centre, who doesn’t get obsessed with clever music and breaking boundaries, who remembers that a song is an artform based on singing, and therefore based on the words and the lyricism of the story.
This is a fantastic throwback to simpler times and simpler pleasures, a dose of rosy cheeked nostalgia and old-fashioned bardic song-writing, albeit updated for the 21st century.
If you want songs that are deep and meaningful essays then look elsewhere, if you want to listen something that is more about real life, that presents kitchen sink dramas in music form then get yourself some of this, it is an absolute joy.