Bravado by Kirin J Callinan
(^ title track and album cover)
Released: June 2017, Genre: pop/rock, Country: Australia
Track by Track:
1.My Moment: Don’t be fooled by the slow, mellow start; the album soon warms up and, in fact, this song, halfway through, has a welcome change of pace to a kind of early electro-pop beat.
2. S.A.D.: Or “Song About Drugs” is livelier and, like several of the songs, has a well-made official video : KJC catches your eye as a dancer, though his choice of swim-wear might alarm some. The song starts pretty well, has a nice instrumental break with a tortured synth crying to be heard above some noisy industrial sound effects. Lyrics are good; KJC throws out some random two-line vignettes that make you think, "What's that about?!" in a good way.
3. Down 2 Hang: My fave track; it has a funky beat, some nicely chaotic clanging of bells, cymbals and stuff, and intriguing lyrics which include,
“Like a greenhouse full of ferns, she is down to hang.” KJC sings in a rather Bowiesque style. At just over 3 mins, this song is over far too soon.
4. Living Each Day: Another short song; best line,
“ …then he had a sandwich.”
5. Big Enough: Throughout the album, it seems like KJC can’t quite decide on his singing persona. On this track he is a shmaltzy crooner, a Freddie Mercury wanna-be and an anguished soul crying out in despair. The downside of this is that you start to wonder about his sincerity in any of the parts he plays, the plus side is that the way a song begins gives you no clue about how the song might end.
6. Family Home: This song is an exception to what I just said, and an exception to the rest of the album. KJC croons his way through a curious story about an evening at home and is accompanied by some slow and simple guitar playing. This is a track I’ll be replaying for sure.
7. Tellin’ Me This: A deep-throated ballad in a retro-pop style complete with girls singing
“sha-la-la” in the background. Sounds rather frivolous to me; perhaps it was fun to record, but it could’ve been left off the album imo.
8. This Whole Town: More Bowie-style singing from KJC, who shares this duet with a female singer. Has a kind of disco beat, but at 3-mins long, the song doesn't have time to go anywhere.
9. Friend Of Lindy Morrison: KJC’s mellow, serious voice drops to a conversational level as it does a few times on this album; strings generate a sense of tension before the song opens out and gets really good. Unfortunately, after 4 mins, KJC brings it all to a hasty conclusion.
10. Bravado:Like many of the tracks, this is very accomplished and well-produced, but doesn’t grab my attention much; once again, it’s hard not to think of Bowie. The best bit is when a kind of wah-wah synth comes in about half-way through.
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Bottom Line: His videos are entertaining to watch, everything sounds very professional and there are a couple of tracks I'll prob return to. My main complaint is about the pop-format song-length really, but I guess that's what you get with pop. Seen as pop, this is a very substantial album, bustling with ideas, styles and good lyrics.
Whodunnit: My guess is that this is from Alloysius, on account of him being Australian an' all, or TechnicLePanther, who is grumbling that his recommendation hasn't been reviewed yet.
Whoever it was, I'd like to thank them for pushing me to explore something new, not just new to me, but new new, like only released a few months ago. My apologies if my review isn't very insightful; I'm no expert about music, and I only had a month to rush through this review. Who knew this club would be conducted at such a hectic pace?!