Following the release of his debut single “Bird Of Prey” b/w “She And I Must Part” (released in April; review by yours truly posted somewhere in July of last year), Duncan Evans finally found his debut solo album released in mid-November (and, yes, we know...we have quite some delay reviewing the thing, but you should see the backlog of releases we get to do each month, with a far to small staff...in fact, our editor-in-chief has trouble downloading all that promo material which in the past was sént to us by mail, you know, and I only got this album in my to-do box like 2 ½ weeks ago, along with some 30 other downloads which had precedent, so...).
As mentioned in my review of the single (I refer you to it for more details info), Evans also operates under the name Henry Hyde Bronson in the bands A Forest Of Stars and Electric Mud Generator, which deal with quite some different types of music! When comparing the music on that single with the full-length, I find there's some songs on the album (“Cindy”, “The Old Lies”) on which Evans makes no use of either the slide guitar backing, or of the female backing vocals, stripping down his music to merely himself and the acoustic guitar. Not a very wise decision, in my opinion, because it focuses the attention on his somewhat unilateral nasal vocals which, in said songs, become a little nagging! Nay, give me those other songs any time, and I suggest anyone having become infatuated with that Ennio Morricone touch of that slide guitar in “Bird Of Prey”, to listen to the complete album (and specifically to the two songs mentioned), before deciding to actually buy the album...or ignore those two tracks altogether, and gét the album because of those few good songs (something which I used to do a lot in the past, and still do to date, when dealing with new bands I come across)!
Meanwhile, a video was recorded for the album's closing track “Girl On The Hill” (with that same Morricone touch & female backing vocals – hey, whom IS that, by the way, and why is she not mentioned in the credits, eh?), and along with “Bird Of Prey” that remains the only material off the album available for listening, unless you go check the 30-second samples usually made available by your trusted online sales websites. For your music fans into some calmer moments, this is an ideal album to put on on a hot Summer evening. Just imagine the setting: you're sitting on the porch with a cool drink at hand, enjoying the coolness of the incoming night before going to sleep, the tones of these 8 songs playing softly in the background! Ach...summer evenings on the porch! Ooh...by the way...the album was also made available on limited edition vinyl!