Findlay Brown - Separated By The Sea (Peacefrog)
3/5
By: Charlie Potter
Once again we have on our hands an album nearly ruined by unnecessary vocal layering. When the main two instruments on show are vocals and guitar, you'd presumably want to hear the vocals of the person in question unaffected by too much technological trickery, but no, it's the studio-voice you get instead I'm afraid. Furthermore, too many of the melodies on this album make you think of your parents dancing. No - worse - people 10 years older than your parents who are single and jaded with bad haircuts and lipstick shamelessly cavorting on a pub dance floor. Perhaps I'm a naïve snob but oh, the sad dreary nights of a town in Devon...
In fact, most acoustic guitar driven albums are produced wrongly. They're all sparkly, middle-y, thick and twangy. Yuk. This is no exception. Listen to 'The Sky is Too High' by Graham Coxon - that's how an acoustic guitar should sound. It should sound like it's been played and loved, but not for itself, only as the means to a cathartic expression. The songs on this album (predominantly love songs) are undoubtedly the result of this personal process, but the recording reeks of someone trying to make a critically acclaimed album. Still, apparently it is one, what with its 5 stars from The Guardian (ooh err).
Yet it's saved by the fantastic arrangements, with the guitar and the vocals at the forefront the background has been filled out with gently tapped, warm percussive sounds and glowing, densely textured soundscapes. The monotony of these taps and the expansive glow of the manipulated sounds puts you right where this album should place you - in the sea that separates this Yorkshire boy and his lost Danish love.
This guy has guts, we'll give him that. He's gone out to say everything he wanted to say and done it. However, you're still left feeling that this album is fighting to have an edge to it, an edge which has been softened by overplaying and over thinking. He's saying all the right words, but you don't feel like he's thinking about them like he used to, like he did when he wrote them perhaps. There are still moments where it shines, moments where it becomes most clear that Mr. Brown has spent a lot of time on his own, time in reflective solitude which birthed this album. It's a warming thought, especially when you're listening to it on your lonesome yourself.
I like Nick Drake. I like Neil Young, and even the Grateful Dead. But when a new album arrives and sounds more dated than anything by the aforementioned lot, it's difficult to not feel weighed down. If it wasn't for those brilliant background sounds and the grand second to last track 'Don't You Know I Love You', 'Separated By The Sea' would be truly struggling. In fact, the whole thing is nearly spoiled by the closing 'Twin Green Pram'. Please kill me. What an earth are you muttering, you weirdo - play the song, sing it properly. You sound like you're falling asleep.
By the end of this album you'll probably be smashing up everything you own just to make sure you're still alive and still have a soul. The sad thing is that he's done the hard part - he's written some interesting words, songs even, good songs, but he just needs to dress up his guitar parts and get behind his tunes like he still cares about them.
Artists in this article: Findlay Brown
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