Drew is a singer/songwriter from the Isle of Wight, a hitherto cultural backwater comparable with Canada minus even the antlered beasties. Maybe my innate cynicism has resulted in me constantly changing my mind about this album. On first listen it came across as wistful, gently uplifting folk, very like David Kitt without the electronica or the cloying syrupy love songs. The second listen and it seemed sparse and musically devoid of any real ideas and the third time you notice that there are actually lots of good ideas but, irritatingly, they appear as the songs fade out and disappear.

The thing is, I keep listening to it so he must be doing something right. It’s straightforward acoustic pop/folk so you know what you’re getting. Opener ‘Dig Deeper’ is a bold, brassy optimistic statement and ‘Nothing Left to Lose’ apes Wonderwall before falling somewhere short of the forlorn epic it hopes to be.

‘Changing Face’ is great pop, where Drew’s striking voice really comes to the fore, and it’s hard to go wrong when a Hammond organ features. ‘You Don’t Know’ and ‘It’s Ok to Cry’ and ‘Under the Weather’ are where you’re left crying out for the songs to carry on as they twist around and carve out minor magic moments as they fade away.

Then there’s the moment that makes the album, and thankfully, it’s a whole song. Drew and his band go all Galaxie 500 on the sublime ‘Leave the Fear’. If ever a song was worth the admission fee! Nervous piano and guitar suddenly make sense with the gorgeous tremulous vocal, “Now I know, don’t have to run for my life”, and it morphs into jazzy shimmering confidence. A golden nugget of a song.

I would recommend this album just to make the Isle of Wight rank above Canada in the cultural stakes, but there’s enough genuine sparkle sprinkled through it to make it a very worthy effort indeed.

words: Roger Hadwen

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