This album isn’t easy to love. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s nothing you’ve not heard before and sounds rather like an okay-pub band. The songs are at once familiar yet instantly forgettable. Mulholland has been around the scene for a long time, building up a loyal fanbase in mainland Europe without ever breaking through in his native Scotland or for that matter the wider UK market.
There are echoes of two great Scottish singer-songwriters, Michael Marra and the late Gerry Rafferty in both lyrical construction and – particularly in the case of Marra – delivery; but Mulholland never really comes close to punching at that weight. The follow-up to his 2008 debut The Devil On Stairs, this is Mark’s first album for Berlin-based Cannery Row Records and on songs like Another Falling Star you can see what he’s trying to do. The music is drenched in a very particular Caledonian melancholia which, when it’s Rab Noakes or King Creosote is endearing. Here it sounds, sad to say, little better than a watered down parody of those two.
I tried, I really did, to like this record and in paces I even managed it but it doesn’t do enough to grab the attention and there’s not even a distinctive enough vocal or some sort of musical “gimmick” to pull in the casual listener. The best I can say for this is that if you heard him in a pub you wouldn’t mind hanging around for the rest of the set – competent but uninspired and, ultimately, uninspiring.
[Rating:2]
<strong>Released 6th February 2012</strong>
http://www.markmulholland.net/
