Badly Drawn Boy has never changed, not once throughout his 3 album career (or 2 depending on where you’re counting from), not one little bit, no sir. He just writes more songs – when he has enough he puts a record out. And that’s that, no real fuss, or so it would seem. The artwork is about as close to a new concept as he gets, and yet again this record does have some fine imagery courtesy of partner-in-crime and label head Andy Votel. If you think he’s going to be changing latitude to any degree on this album, his 4th / 3rd depending on where you’re standing, you do indeed have another thing coming. Because Damon Gough certainly doesn’t. Same old, same old.
Same old Joanna, same old acoustic guitar, same old wistful humour in its signature confusing/unsettling serious/funny juxtaposition arrangement, same old potting shed feel to it all. But if you were to characterise it you could say he’s toned it down a touch, giving it the more vulnerable and less sturdy feel that his solo live shows tend to exhibit to varying degrees of success. But that’s probably not because of any other reason than that he wrote a couple more songs in the sombre vein and then recorded them. You rarely get the impression he thought twice about what we’re now listening to.
But there are moments where the opposite seems the case. His debut, ‘Hour Of Bewilderbeast’, still retains its perch as his most adventurous collection, but just as ‘Born Again’ did all the hard work for ‘Have You Fed The Fish?’ without breaking into a sweat, here too are a small handful of irresistible ditties beckoning you nearer. The title track is a lush Lennon-esque opening if ever we heard one, ‘Four Leaf Clover’ is remarkably upbeat next to much of what’s on offer, and both ‘The Year Of The Rat’ and ‘Holy Grail’ are epic, engaging pop songs that really sing for their suppers (with help from the Stockport Music Project, landing somewhere between the Annie choir and the Polyphonic Spree vocal regiment), like effort still counts for something. It all fits into the lineage nicely, even if it won’t go anywhere else.