Not sure I’m really comfortable with the recurring anti-folk moniker as I fail to see how any of this either subverts or challenges the usual celebration of all that’s trivial and rubbish in life as experienced by isolated loners and folks who are pathologically verbose or bookish in some way, as this is exactly how listens. I’m also a little perturbed by Brink’s unfathomable rewriting of Dylan’s legendary ‘I Shall Be Released’ during ‘Keep Your Head High’. And not even the deliberate ‘impromptu’ laughter that characterises the chirpy and untroubled opener, ‘Hi, Jane’ amuses me much either. Sadly, the calculated way in which some musicians ‘do’ lo-fi really pisses me off. For me there’s no discernable skill in cramming the unlikeliest of images together in an effort to sound offbeat. Contrary to what many would have us believe genius is not defined by either a pair of oversized glasses, a thin nasal whine or one’s ability to feature ladders, ashtrays, milk cartons and Martians in the same sentence. That said there is an undeniable mellow charm to Brink’s smooth yet slightly delirious blues and jazz noodlings and tracks like ’39 Winks’ sit confidently alongside James Yorkston, Leonard Cohen or Robert Wyatt.
Fans of early Belle & Sebastian might enjoy its quirky observations of life in the slow lane but fans of Camp Rock might have a hard time staying conscious.