I could have drawn on Graeme’s past highs and lows, but that would truly have been unfair, as this is a CD which stands on its own merits.
The CD starts with a track which sounds like it should be on a Crowded House record – all the way from the tremolo inflected guitar down to the vocal harmonies. Such a near carbon copy of someone else’s style is rarely a good sign but thankfully this isn’t the norm. The album’s best tracks are “Me and the Devil Inside” and “Bulletproof”, which break away from the normal singer songwriter fare and almost hit country blues territory. A touch of Zydeco is added with mandolin and accordion and a gorgeously twangy guitar solo adds to the Prairie Home Companion feel. While Graeme’s lyrics won’t be winning any Ivor Novello awards (he’s let in quite a few toe curling forced rhymes and twee similes), the quality of arrangement and production avoids making the CD an overly sugared disk
I’m not sure that this CD will have the same audience as the teeth and tight-trouser loving brigade which would have been part of Graeme’s audience 25 years ago (yes it has been THAT long since he initially Souled Out – geddit?), but this CD should appeal to a more mature and thoughtful listener. The grown up songwriting stands head and shoulders above anything we’re likely to get from certain other ex-bandmates.