"... you may hear echoes of Neil Young, Lee Hazlewood, Nick Cave, Van Morrison, Serge Gainsbourg, Arthur Lee, Leonard Cohen, Brian Wilson, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, Ewan MacColl, Phil Spector and many others ..." (Skint Records website)You may also find traces of nuts.
In fact, almost anything is possible. I say "almost" because the chance of me finding a place in my heart for Brighton duo Lucky Jim is a number as close to zero as makes no difference. I'm not sure whether it's the absurd hyperbole of the advertising copy or the bland indifference of the songs that does most damage. But I'm supposed to be reviewing the single, not castigating the pr dude. So here goes.
Lucky Jim write Americana-style songs that aspire to be any of the above, plus maybe Jim Croce, Jackson Browne or Don Henley. Off the top of my head I can think of a dozen people, just in Leeds, whose least effective songs are still way better - lyrically and melodically - than any of the three on this CD.
The quality of the CD is in the production values. Recording, engineering and all that stuff makes the ghastliness of the songs unmistakable. Every corny line, every clichéd backing vocal and each bog standard string synth part shimmer and gleam like the chocolate wrappers in Woolworths.
The words are so awful that I apologise for offering you some: "You're lovely to me, yes you are / You're the elusive chord on my old guitar" (which painfully has too many syllables to fit the notes) or rhyming "day that you were born" with "no use to any one" are beyond redemption, or even parody. The deadly seriousness of the delivery rules out any possibility that these shoddy tricks are any kind Dylan-style playfulness.
In fact, these songs are so glutinous that I would not be surprised to hear that they have become very popular and that Gordon Graham and Ben Townsend have become major artists. They have an album, from which these songs are taken. The popular music industry is sick and dying on its arse.
