Sound Advice: CD Reviews - Badly Drawn Boy (The Hour of Bewilderbeast)

CD Review:
This is Daniel Gough's debut and it is a great start. This CD is in a similar vein to Travis's or Coldplay's music. Gough uses various instruments and sound effects to evoke a slow relaxing listening experienced. Instruments including, piano, cello, acoustic and electric guitar, drums, trumpet and more. With the lyrics evoking nature, sound effects such as, chirping birds, and splashing water, are used to further create a feel of the outdoors.

Gough's voice is just above average and because of that, I'm assuming, he doesn't tax its range on any of the songs. The closest thing to that taxing would be on the song "Cause a Rockslide" which evokes a memory of Prince's higher range. There are long breaks between the lyrics of each song, which allows the listener to hear the music Gough wants to put forth. He is intentionally doing this to put the music on the same level as the lyrics, which seem appropriate since the lyrics don't inspire any thing too thought provoking.

Gough adds a twist to the lyrics on songs such as "The Shining," "Another Pearl" and "Epitath," in that, he introduces French words like "soleil", "sur la plage" and "c'est maintenant" which can confuse the listener if he doesn't realize the change of language. I wonder if he did this to make us think he is bilingual, and therefore an intelligent lyricist or because it was just what he thought up to smooth the lyrical feel of those lines.

You can identify this album as "U" shaped. That is, the first songs are really good, there is a lull in the middle, and then it returns to greatness in the last few songs. When first listening, it seemed there was a continual story playing out from song to song but then you get lost in the middle only to begin to pick up on it at the end.

The first song "The Shining" seems to be about a meeting between a boy and a girl. The 2nd song "Everybody Stalking" seems to pick up after the couple has separated on the girl's part, and the boy can't agree and therefore follows her around. Until in the 3rd song, "Fall in the River," she is sick of it and tells him to jump in a river. The 4th song "Camping Next to Water" picks up after he has fallen in the river, gets out and starts a campfire and laments over his loneliness. At this time, you figure you are listening to a lyrical story of a relationship between a boy and a girl, sung from song to song. The name of the album starts making some sense, as in, he is a bewildered beast with this relationship he describes on the CD.

But after the 4th song you are lost and wonder if this was Gough's intention, or are you reading into this something that isn't there. He ends with the Song "Epitath" which can be considered the death of this relationship. The CD runs over an hour but it whisks by without seeming at all time consuming.

FS Staff