Labels: Discount Horse
Review by: Joe Caithness
So this is the first review I have written in literally years, so I thought I’d start with the nicest looking CD on the pile, which happens to be this little yellow thing on Discount Horse Records. The artwork is particularly great, designed by someone named Esther Yuan. It is really great and perfect for this time of year as the nights sky is red and leaves cover the ground.
The CD kicks off with a stripped down simple “one man and his guitar” kind of affair, turns out this Short Term Effect is just one dude, Michael Bridgewater. I have to say the production on this record lets it down quite a lot from the offset. Compositionally he’s going for a real personal, organic approach, but the CD itself is loud and pumping and smells of unnecessary “digital shine”. That said there are some nice little tricks on here, “Luang #1″ takes a sudden darker turn on the CD and has layers of whispery vocals that switch things up nicely.
The problem with “one man and his guitar” artists is there is 50000000 others in your hometown alone at any given moment, and to really pull it off you need to have either a brilliant voice, exceptional guitar skills or lyrics that really grab you and take the listener in.
The problem with this CD is it doesn’t really have any of the above. It’s not shit, it’s just not got that extra factor that puts it apart from any guy singing in a pub in the corner on a shitty PA when you and your mates aer trying to enjoy a nice cold pint. The moments where other instruments appear, do so very conservatively and just feel like they felt the need to pad the tunes out, as opposed to arranging the songs in interesting ways. Plus 15 tracks of the same guy singing and strumming in a similar way just isn’t a very exciting listen. Very nice CD to look at though!