SHIRLEY LEE is better known to British indie stalwarts as front man with long-serving guitar popsters Spearmint. A group well-known for sticking to their guns, their seven albums have provided their loyal fanbase with pop thrills aplenty and their catalogue remains ripe for re-discovery on a wider scale.
The good news is that the Spearmint story is far from over and that SHIRLEY LEE'S eponymous debut album is apparently an outlet for a batch of his most intimate, personal songs. Its' release co-incides with the publication of a book called 'This Is A Souvenir: The Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee' and will be a positive boon for all long term Spearmint heads.
Because, frankly, 'Shirley Lee' is a Spearmint album in all but name. Yes, it's true there's a candid intimacy to many of these tunes and the album's stand-out track 'The Reservoir' is a hauntingly sparse tribute to Lee's late father, but the band is made up of Spearmint's usual suspects Ronan Larvor, Simon Parsons, Simon Calnan and Andy Lewis and with producer Brian O'Shaughnessy (Primal Scream, Bish) responding with verve and empathy, 'Shirley Lee' is a bright, intelligent record which will satisfy anyone with a weakness for quintessential British guitar pop.
Some of it accelerates and rocks efficiently. Intelligent, lovelorn songs like 'The First Time You Saw Snow', 'The Traffic In The Street' and the urgency of 'Dissolving Time' (“how can you die if you have never lived?”) are bracing and melodic, while the country-tinged trailer single 'The Smack Of Pavement In Your Face' is a lovely sonic headrush and catches the heartstopping dizziness of love's first flush full on.
Lyrically, Lee is on fine form, mixing and matching existentialism, faded glamour, the all-important minutiae of life and lacing it with warmth and a dollop of wry humour. It's impossible, for example, to deny a song as charming as the brief 'Spiralina Girl', where Shirley falls for the girl “obsessed with canoli and banoffi pie/ she looks great in houndstooth” or to cavil about the gentle seduction proffered by 'Down At Brighton Beach' where Shirl gushes “you left a message on the window, so I'd see it every time I cook.”
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Musically, there are a few nice twists on tried and tested guitar-pop shapes. 'The Lights Change' is a gutsy, bass-led Spy Theme set in Cairo; the London-centric 'Walked Away' throws some strident , discoid beats and the odd low-key sample into the mix and the instrumental 'London Ghost Stories' is a Northern Soul-tinged affair enhanced by Tindersticks-y vibes. Perhaps best of all is 'The Reservoir: Shirley's soul-bearing tribute to his late father, which has more than its' fair share of memorable observations (“never knew you did impressions of John Wayne and Jacques Tati/ I knew you had a temper which you passed on to me”), a hauntingly sparse arrangement and a moving answerphone message from Mr.Lee senior at the end. It's not quite up there with Billy Bragg's stunning 'Tank Park Salute', but it's not that far south of it either.
'Shirley Lee', then, is a consistent and often inspired album. Its' traditional guitar pop sound may not win converts in droves, but it's more than good enough to make a mockery of the detractors who feel erudite British guitar pop soured for good when Noel Gallagher took tea with Tony at Number Ten. It'll do very nicely indeed.
(http://www.myspace.com/shirleyleeuk
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