It’s kind of annoying when you spend years listening to music then an artist pops up ten albums in and you’ve never heard of him. He was also in Eugene + The Lizards (me neither) but Wikipedia says he was a session player for, and in the touring band of, Miles Kane, so I guess his albums went, as they say, under the radar.
I’ve no idea what he used to sound like but this is a good album. It is gentle indie pop but has a lot going on, with something of the richness and nostalgia of Richard Hawley, the Northern grittiness of a Northern gritty band and something of a seventies hippy folk singer. It’s gentle but never boring, interesting and the sound is clean. McGuinness’s voice is soft, and he sounds like he’s slightly amused at something the sound engineer just said.
Opener “Meteor Man” is instantly likable, a pleasing acoustic guitar riff rapidly followed by vocals and a falsetto chorus and a keyboard sound that reminded me of Groove Armada writing about rivers. A real grower, this one.
“Seascape” is more typically acoustic, but the guitar is rapidly followed by evocative strings; it’s a laidback song with whistling, but conveys a sense of yearning (and again, a Groove Armada feel, with a real groove under the more wandering vocals). “London” has something of the whimsy of acoustic Blur about it, while “If You Say So” is atmospherically downbeat.
My download has side A and B marked; if there is any difference, A leans towards quirk, B is more gospel, with a hymn-like quality, possibly thanks to the harmony.
A nice indie acoustic album; some tracks are stronger than others and side A is better than B, but not a duff moment throughout and it stands repeat plays.
See eugenemcguinnessmusic.bandcamp.com
JMC
