Grand Drive - 'The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count' (Gravity)
2/5
By: Kevin Molloy
The album-title is brimming within insatiable, shameless indie, the recycled cardboard packaging with black silhouette even more so, but Grand Drive possess little else to place them into that spurious but beloved genre.
Grand Drive are in fact part of the ever-burgeoning scene that is alt-country, but they won't overtly advertise that fact, for they suffer from the feared plague of country music: a lack of real interest, emotion or energy; and an over-tendency to whine.
It's a true shame/pain, because there are moments to 'The Lights...' that positively shine. At their best, the Wilson brothers bear husky voices of the purest tone imaginable, singing way up in the too-tight-trouser '70s with an almost unearthly quality. The eminence of the vocal talent never actually wanes, but the intrigue it causes soon wears off with the calibre of song. The LP is a typical toploader - the standout, potent songs are rolled into track numbers 1 through 3, whilst the remainder are non-committal, uninteresting filler; cheap, non-burning cigarette baccy to pack out the dissatisfying joint.
Opener 'Love and the Truth', for instance, is sublime, it truly is. The lyrics boast a simplistic depth, the gently reverberating guitar pulls the song through three minutes of nearly-acoustic gold-dust, before the drums belatedly kick in driving the track to its euphoric conclusion.
Their lyrical affability, however, soon deserts them. Clichés of the most awkward type flow with such profusion that you welcome the onset of a series of 'na na na's' as an intelligent relief to the onslaught. Such literal non-entities should not need to form a mask to a truly remarkable stream of un-associated clichés, phrases and everyday coinages. This is the kind of gambit that the brothers Wilson will be hoping allows anybody to read into the song what they want to, and hence create their own personal depths of richness. The actual result is akin to a shallow, dry well; the songs are confused messes of sense, reliant on overused melodies to carry them through.
Because of this, 'I Believe In Love' could have been glorious, but can only manage twee and cringeworthy, to that extent that even McCartney might have to turn up his nose, and he's allowed to write songs this bad (take these random chestnuts: 'wouldn't want you any other way', 'feeling like a number', 'I'm not alone', 'tell it to the rising sun').
Why on earth the tracks are so long, then, is anybody's guess. It's as if Grand Drive realised their short-comings, and decided to compensate for them by dilution: perhaps the constant repetition at the end of every song will persuade the listener that it's alright really?
What Grand Drive have on the positive side of affairs is a fairly unique vocal talent, and an aptitude for the middle of the road, but the pretensions towards Indie, or indeed any substantial amount of respect, are deluded and unfounded. This record isn't a bad record - it's just never going to be a great one. Their forthcoming single, 'Maybe I'm A Winner', is one of the rare highlights. But it's in the lyrics we can find the root of all our discomfort, as Danny Wilson pleads, 'Maybe I'm a winner, playing in a losing game'. Unfortunately Grand Drive's latest offering represents the losers in a currently winsome genre.
Artists in this article: Grand Drive
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