DIY Indie-Pop trooper Keith Brown follows his full length album with this four-track ep. However his new release finds him hiding behind smoke and mirrors rather than building on the momentum of last summer’s debut.
Brown comes across as a very contradictory figure. His music is fuelled by the DNA of Britpop at its stroppy and cock-sure best but instead of forcing his work into the unforgiving light of the mainstream, his songs are all prone to moments of self sabotage. When appearing on his local BBC Introducing show, Brown and his band showcased a song that started with a fantastic stutter driven Buzzcocks opening before collapsing into a middle section that dragged on for longer than the Andy Carroll saga on transfer deadline day. It appears to some them up.
This attitude is still more apparent on Real Stuff. The title track roars in with choppy Modern Life era Graham Coxon guitars and a melody cheekily stolen for Greg Lake’s ‘I Believe In Father Christmas’. After 40 seconds we’re given some more moments of imitative Coxon fuzz until the song takes a darker edge and enters an acoustic section echoing the change of pace in Band On The Run.
It’s an attempted Britpop mini opera. Unfortunately unlike Pete Townsend’s magnificently bonkers ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’, instead of each section being a development of the last, each part feels like its main function is to distract the listener from the fact that none of it is really that memorable. We’re left with a song that doesn’t stay in one place long enough to become charming and lacks the raw materials to grab your full attention.
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Next song The Light fairs better: a two minute rocket with mouse-trap guitars and the gloriously blunt opening of “I work nights ‘cos I haven’t got a life”. It’s completely throwaway but after the arduous opening it’s undeniably a lot of fun. On The Roadside delivers a wonderfully sharp interlocking guitar line and a disenchanted look at modern life’s need for upgrade and innovation but lacks a chorus. The less said about grand finale Meanderings, however, the better. A smarmy Wurlitzer based cocktail lounge pastiche that makes the second half of Blur’s The Great Escape feel like a defining point of musical genius. The vocal delivery makes The Wombats seem endearing.
So we’re left with an ep that’s more of a side-step. Brown seems happier disguised behind tricks and gimmicks than he is actually trying to engage the listener. There are enough good ideas on offer here but they all seem in need of some serious craft. That said, with NME currently forcing Britpop crayon eaters Brother onto people as the saviours of British music, there could well be a place for Keith Brown as the eccentric jester of the scene. Then again, Brother are a lot worse than this.
Check out the songs from Real Stuff at Bandcamp
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