This release is less songwriter-based than Chris Flew's early demos, which presented a collection of lightly-sketched acoustic numbers which hinted at great potential.
This nine-track album confirms the promise, and shows that he's at home alone, or with a band setup, despite performing all the instrumentation himself.
With deeply melancholic lyrics, it'd be easy to become buried in introspection, but the added musical nuances mean that any miserabilist tendencies a la Smog are dispelled, and there's a chirpy, upbeat feel in the flavour of Martin Stephenson or Roddy Frame.
A perfect mix, in fact.
4/5
Stuart McHugh - The List (4 Mar 2004)