He’s good fun for your mum.
John Garrison toured the world with James Blunt! Bearing this in mind, I gird my ears for a cringe-worthy pop-fest. Well. What do you know?
An album of clean cut, solid pop tunes. Prominent, defined and unremarkable vocals tell stories of light hearted break-ups (I Leave on Friday), infantile bewilderment (Once Around the Block) and cutesy contentment (Second for the First Time). Flimsy pop from producer Matt Shane, who, among others, worked with Dashboard Confessional, and might be to blame for the album’s sense of juvenile fretfulness, and musicians who have also worked with James Blunt and Robbie Williams, whi may have brought along with them their technically tight, yet unexceptional musical know-how.
Tracks like "Let's Run" and “Rendezvous” wouldn’t sound out of place in a Take That comeback set. Twinkling xylophone gives "Let's Run" a romantic, snowy, brie-scented magic. “Rendezvous” has a go at utilising electro zips and a bouncing funk rhythm which, alongside these benign pop melodies, all comes together in an uncomfortable, gawky, unfashionable ineffectiveness. A bit like your greying, middle aged uncle attempting to use teenage slang in conversation.
Again and again Garrison manages to nail down solid pop melodies with inoffensive instrumentation including classical string sections (Once Around the Block), acoustic guitar (Second for the First Time) and piano (I Want You). However any interesting musical techniques blend into the magnolia white of bland predictable pop, the sort loved by housewives everywhere.
“Footprints” is probably the darkest track on the album, with a repetitive bass and looming vocals but somewhat lightened when electric guitar and bass drop away to an impressive classical string interlude before entering a moment of Spanish flavoured sound with drums and hand claps. Garrison even manages to make words like ‘we’re all gonna die, we’re all going to hell’ sound like a flimsy everyday pleasantry, in the nursery rhyme-like love song “Alexander and Annabel.”
These are droplets of inoffensive pop loveliness - head bobbing good fun for your mum, with all the emotional clout of a herd of puppies licking your face. Oh bless.