The Hour Of Bewilderbeast

I'd heard 'The Shining' on a free cd, and that was enough to persuade me to shell out for the whole album. And it was worth every penny - a collection of 18 fantastic songs costing less than most of the 9 song collections of pop pap and 'nu-metal'which are going around at the moment.

The Mercury prize, and all the critical hype might set Badly Drawn Boy up as some 'arty' type, but don't be put off: he's just some guy in a weird hat, who happens to write and sing really great songs. Almost every track is a classic, and every time you listen to the album you find another amazing moment; the child-like backing vocals from his fiancee on 'Epitaph' being my favourite at the moment. The lyrics are all either funny or moving, and more often than not both - 'I don't want you to die/I don't have to say why' on 'Epitaph' a prime example. And anyone who can afford to relegate a song as beautiful as 'Fall in the River' to a 1 and a half minute filler has to be worthy of attention - on any other album it would be the high point, here it is just another in a constant stream of awe-inspiring moments.

Really, do your ears a favour - go and buy this, listen to it a couple of dozen times, then catch him live. You won't regret it.

I was more surprised than I could imagine. Not only is it "not too bad", it's singularly one of the greatest albums of the past decade. Gough paints masterfully uplifting and touching songs with gentle flicks of a carefully-honed musical brush, delivered throughout with a subtle grin and sense of humour.

The first time you listen through the entire thing, you'll be confused. It'll seem like an unintelligble mangle of sounds and ideas. Listen to it at least half a dozen times, then you'll love it. Anybody who pans this album has only listened through the entire tracklist one or two times. There are so many carefully-constructed layers to "The Hour of Bewilderbeast" that you simply have to listen to it repeatedly in order to pick them all out, then step back and appraise the entire work as the true piece of genius that it is. Mr. Gough, I take my hat off to you.

This album is a masterpiece - the best I have bought for 3 years (since the Verve's "Urban Hymns" in fact). A rare quality is that it is both instantly appealing yet also enduring. Never having even heard of Badly Drawn Boy previously, I wondered into a record shop one lunchtime about 3 months ago while this was playing and I bought it on the spot. Even now after at least 30 plays, I still haven't tired of it! My only slight criticism is that one or two of the tracks are frustratingly short, but at 63 minutes and 18 tracks there is little room for complaint.

After the brilliance of the opening track "Shining", for me the outstanding section of the album occurs in the middle..Once Around The Block, This Song, Bewilderbeast & Magic In the Air are all excellent tracks in their own right but together they capture the great diversity of musical styles which are such a feature of the album.

If, like me, you tend to treat award winning albums, films, you name it... with a degree of suspicion, on this occasion don't worry - this album really does deserve the accolade.

This will be tough to follow, but if the next album is anywhere near as strong as this, Badly Drawn Boy will become a very big name indeed.