This new album from Mr Coxon is rather marvellous, and bizarrely it’s more than a decade old. The man has had a great album lost in his sock drawer for a decade. Though I suppose if you’re in a band with Damon Albarn, none of your songs will sound good.
“Castle Park” was recorded in 2011, and was intended as a follow-up to “A+E” but postponed due to Blur work in 2012, then Coxon moved on to other projects.
“Castle Park” is a collection of songs firmly rooted in the sixties, somewhere between the Beatles, classic sixties pop and the Mods, and there’s not a moment that’s not jauntily happy.
Lead single “Billy Says” is a longtime feature of Coxon’s live set and opens. Coxon’s voice is perfect and the lyrics generally not only make sense but can be biting, such as “Alright”, in which Coxon sings he’s OK about his ex seeing another man, except he laments “I can’t see the light shining out of his behind” and wishes the other man was dead. There’s even a whistling solo.
“When You Find Out” is a glorious sixties pop tune, the kind played by young men in jumpers shaking maracas in old black and white shows. Standouts are the groovy “There’s a Little House” and “Dripping Soul”. Lots of songs sound a little like something else, presumably deliberately.
This is out 19th June, if it’s not a massive hit I’ll eat my hat.
See grahamcoxon.bandcamp.com
JMC
