Duff by name...
This is a run of the mill edging towards dire debut LP from the former Strangelove singer, all bases are covered from folk to rock via pop along the way, each genre sticking to a fairly generic template and so failing to establish any unique voice across its 12 tracks.
The first thing you notice about it is the vocals are turned up far too high , not a great idea if your voice is on the average side, even more so if you have a tendency to lapse into lyrical cliché :"one way traffic on a dead end street" from the opener "Married With Kids" being a particularly wince inducing moment.
"In My Junkie Clothes" concerns itself with previous drug exploits but fails to land any revelatory punches and ultimately comes across as self obsessed and affected.
"Fucked" and "Song To America" are ballady affairs, the former hits a few right buttons with its intimate feel but the later is cringe worthy, aiming for profundity in its lyrics it falls way short and ends up as a series of vapid nonsensical clichés with pretensions towards universal themes : "every man has a place he is leaving and a place he is trying to go, but the man who has chosen to take his own place at the place he does not as yet know". Answers on a postcard please. It ends with the spoken statement in mockney " What is it?... Ok ladies and gentlemen..."Luxury Problems" is what it is" that solidifies the feel of pretension in granite.
"Early Morning Birds" performs the neat trick of making you want to put a pick axe through your stereo within the first 5 seconds : the title is repeated over in a way that could cause mass winged emigration if employed in the right way. What follows is the now standard appalling lyrics that would embarrass a sixth form poetry class. Musically its sub standard grunge that’s had the life ironed out of it by over production. "DJ Yoga" has some nice harmonica and some fairly amusing lyrics about a lover running off with a Yoga teacher, probably a regular occurrence in today's climate of self discovery and improvement. "Refrigerator" is a passable rock out and "Elephant Bill" tunelessly annoying and rushed sounding with some dreadful rhyming couplets.