Call Upon The Author

Yes, it is a great name. It comes from his friend calling him a shark, he has blue eyes, and this album is his experiment.
The opening title track throws together a playful selection of clashing rhythms that wouldn’t go amiss while wandering through some demented Big Top. It all settles down with Goodbye My Friend, reminiscent of Longwave and vocally switching from the spoken voice to that of Interpol’s Paul Banks and Sam Duckworth-esque singing prowess.
What To Do, a song about being diagnosed with cancer, is actually the ‘cutest’ and most commercial effort on the album. It works really well as a drunken sing-a-long. Vocally it’s quite authoritative and he really keeps a hold on you. Musically it’s a bit of a mixed bag, notably Generation falls down on an off the mark synth/snare combo which would have lived at the bottom of the charts in the 80’s. Backing vocals do not do him any favours either. There’s musically along of strands in most of the songs. Tapdance starts as a playful number, progressing into a news reel sampled, bird tweeting mess before camping it up with swinging backing vocals.
There may be some pressure on being another singer/songwriter, but as with Beautiful and Look Back, when he’s not messing about it really is up there with the best of them. But soon after Jet-Plane’s ‘New Order on speed’ effort kills the atmosphere.
So, yes, very much a musical experiment. It’s a shame he didn’t just show us the ones that were worked. The musical ‘creativity’ does work, on occasion, but for the love of god just reel it in sometimes.

check out more at www.myspace.com/blueeyedshark