Call Upon The Author

David Celia is a Canadian fella who writes, produces and releases his own albums – I Tried being the third so far. He’s teamed up with some experienced musicians (including Mike Olsen from The Arcade Fire, my personal loves) to bring us this offering – so what’s it like?
Opener Turnout is a poppy number straight out of the sixties, which promises liveliness and summer vibes. The equally perky ukelele fronted Severine keeps up the tempo – smiley and nice, these two tracks may not be life changing, but they’re chirpy enough, and you could be forgiven for thinking this might be a decent bit of bubblegum to soundtrack your summer. Unfortunately not.
Track three, Wishful Thinking has some pretty brass, but David’s voice begins to show the strain and you realise he’s not the strongest of singers. At this point, it’s all still bright and inoffensive, but it’s honestly downhill from here. I Tried is meandering and wistful to the point of being boring. Sergio returns to that Merseybeat chipper style, which is OK, and it seems to be recovering… then comes parody song I’m Not Texan, which is a pastiche on Southern music and include’s David’s apparent surprise to have written a Country and Western number – which is then followed by Instant Puppy Love, which is, essentially, a Country song. Without the pastiche.
Crush is horrid, and undoubtedly my low point of the album. It’s a toe-curlingly embarrassing song about a girl he fancied at school and never had the guts to ask out: bad enough, but he sings it in a really horribly whiny way, and the lyrics are basically bad teenage poetry. Rotten. Then there is Bug’s Apocalypse – a song about flies getting trapped in sap. Bad rhyming and out of tune singing make this another low point.
Essentially, there are three OK sixties style pop songs on this album. The rest of it is not good. I feel bad saying this, because David looks like a really nice friendly kind of a dude… but it really is pretty bland and ineffectual stuff.