Badly Drawn Boy

The Hour of Bewilderbeast (Twisted ’00) Rating: B+
When this debut album from Damon Gough (a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy) won Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize for Best Album of 2000, it got my attention (unlike the Grammy voters, the Mercury voters usually have a clue). So did reviews calling him a "British Elliott Smith," in part due to a similarly whispery vocal style, and intense songs such as "Everbody's Stalking" and "Another Pearl" do perhaps remind me of the mellower side of Built To Spill (minus the guitar heroics) fronted by Mr. Smith. "Disillusion," a funky, groove-based song with full-bodied string arrangements, is the albums other rocking track, as the rest of the album is in a folksier style, though odd instrumentation (Gough plays most of the instruments himself) and production touches ensure that there's precious little that's standard about the album. Alas, the songs themselves are hit or miss, though "The Shining," which delivers symphonic pop worthy of Wilco, "Stone On The Water," a rich acoustic ballad, "Stone On The Water," on which lush violins mingle with acoustic guitars to alluring effect, and "Magic In The Air," a pretty Beatles-esque piano ballad, are other obvious high points along with the aforementioned songs. Elsewhere, you get completely unnecessary ("Bewilder," "Fall In A River," "Body Rap") or pleasantly forgettable ("This Song," "Bewilderbeast," "Blistered Heart") filler, while other songs ("Cause A Rockslide," "Epitath") flash plenty of potential that ultimately goes unrealized due to Gough's excessive experimentation. So, about half the album is excellent and the other half is extremely frustrating, even more so because Gough is clearly an artist of considerable talent. It's a shame that neither his record company, producer, or Gough himself imposed the discipline that would've helped him realize his potential right from the start. Instead, what we have here is an album that adds up to less than the sum of its often stunning parts.

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