Album Review

Its always tricky for a singer to go solo after having a great career within a group and Marti Pellow always had an uphill struggle to replicate the success he had with Wet Wet Wet as a solo musician. From his debut Smile ten years ago his solo output has been rather flat, giving off the sound of a man who is unsure of how best to approach his material. He seems locked between going off on a different route to his bands style and staying with what he knows best lest he alienates his fan base and it is a struggle that really hurts the resulting music and his latest offering continues this trend.

The album opener The Devil And The Monkey is also the latest single and is a total misfire. It has tinges of electro and tribal style music contained within but in all honesty it is slightly messy and sounds like something Paul Simon threw out from his Graceland sessions after having one too many glasses of red. What follows is not much better, with tracks such as The Grass Has Never Been Greener and Never Give Up On You being completely mawkish affairs and others like Make It Stick and I Surrender just lacking any spark of life.

It is a shame that there is not at least one standout track (the best in my opinion being Here Today, Here Tomorrow) for if there was at least hope for his next outing might be met with some optimism but sadly I would feel Pellow may need to find some inspiration fast or his solo output may start to overshadow the genuinely decent work he has done with WWW. This album is better off just fading into the background.