Andrew Bingham
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A Hoarder Wants to Give - Andrew Bingham Album Review
Album Review
Running your finger down the side of the cellophane and opening up the gatefold sleeve with the excited anticipation of an 8 year old on Christmas Day - that's the beauty of an unheard CD. Music is a physical thing and needs to be held, but that's the old anti-digital argument and not for now.
My point is that the look of a set of songs IS important and A Hoarder Wants To Give by Andrew Bingham looks impressive.
However, even good looking covers can be deceptive and from its sepia tinted pictures of a ramshackle dwelling and a shepherd with his sheep, one might fully expect 13 songs of depression-era America - but that's not what this album is. What the listener gets is a baker's dozen of nicely crafted, lyrically sharp tales of angst, loss, fragility and the sheer joy of love.
The accompanying press release cites Wilco, Neil Young and Counting Crows as markers, and who am I to disagree, but post-Commotions Lloyd Cole sprung to my mind with a dash of Tom Baxter for good measure. Anyway comparisons are a lazy, if necessary evil and it's the tunes that count.
Bingham kicks off in strong style with the title track; a slow burning blues number about domestic incompatibility and continues in fine style ticking all the folk/pop buttons. The pace is mostly sedate punctuated by the Lou Reed-esq Done Reaching and Good Day's Work which rock along very pleasantly.
Add in the country twang of Fleabag Motel and the brittle beauty of the closers Death of A Poet and Mine and you've got something that I'd certainly spend my hard earned cash on - luckily I don't have to!
A Hoarder Wants to Give by Andrew Bingham is released by Andrew Bingham Music and is available on CD or digital download from iTunes, CD Baby.com and www.AndrewBinghamMusic.com
