This is not your usual album. It is pretty much devoid of songs for a start being more of a reading, or more accurately, a collection of didactic and misanthropic reflections on life. This is, of course, no less than you would expect of Kevin P. Gilday – also of the dark and twisted duo How Garbo Died – and this album is undoubtedly a personal statement rather than an attempt to garner favour or glory.
That said, there is much to commend here as long as you are not expecting to be uplifted in any way that might be classed as spiritual. For example, the bleak intelligence of “I Am My Father’s Son” is a blood soaked hammer to the head of inevitability with the frustration of being in the eternal queue of life metaphorically and precisely expressed in “Call Centre Blues”.
It seems no less than appropriate in terms of atmospheric effect that “Beautiful Cosmos” should be illustrated as a sort of minimalist litany as was the crumbling lament used as the presentation for “We Used To Make Ships Here”. If you are going to reflect upon decay then that is the way to do it.
Sheer bile, on the other hand, drives “An Unremarkable Shade of Beige” forward against the trendy and the commercialised and, whilst ever in danger of drowning in his own sarcasm, the underlying humour of “The Polite Meeting of Two Well-Mannered Men” shows that Mr Gilday might not actually be in need of a Prozac prescription.
“Graphite” makes many serious points as its black cloud of doom casts a shadow over the pain and confusion of modern life. Unlike, say, Aidan John Moffat, Mr Gilday’s youth allows him to eschew general grumpiness in favour of a barely suppressed rage and, like Linton Kwesi Johnson before him, he knows exactly how to target said rage. You may not like, or agree, with his words but you should hear them.
Available for download from Bandcamp.